New wireless network features in Windows 7 - Virtual WI-FI

The emergence of WiFi technology has changed the habits of many computer users. However, in addition to speed increase, coverage expansion and security improvement, wireless technology has not developed much. However, since 2002, Microsoft Research has been researching virtualized WiFi adapters to receive almost all wireless signals through a single piece of hardware. Now, this virtual WiFi technology has been integrated into the basics of the Microsoft Windows 7 network. In essence, virtual WiFi works very much like a virtualized operating system, transparently sharing limited hardware resources for multiple operating systems. Virtual WiFi referred to as VWiFi is a software layer application for virtual multiple wireless adapters. This software allows each virtual adapter to connect to a wireless network and ensures that the adapter can support multiple wireless LANs at the same time.

According to the Long Zheng blog, this feature has been integrated in Windows 7. The reason this feature has been undiscovered for a long time is that the driver supports problem issues. This feature is not working properly now because there is no suitable driver. It is reported that as long as WiFi hardware manufacturers recompile their hardware Windows 7 drivers, they can provide virtual WiFi functionality under Windows 7. However, the prerequisite is that this WLAN driver needs to be certified by Microsoft Windows 7.

How Virtual WiFi Works

If all goes well, this feature will be automatically exposed soon. On Windows 7, the operating system will install a virtual device that directly hosts the wireless network function of the current WiFi network card. This virtual device can be displayed as "Wireless Network Connection 2" in the network connection menu, and the device name is "Microsoft Virtual Wireless Micro Adapter". ".