Can't connect ad hoc network to Windows 8.1 Pro

I'm trying to connect to my ad hoc network through the command prompt with the the following command:

netsh wlan show network

... I get the following output:

SSID 3 : Range
Network Type : Adhoc
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Encryption : CCMP

I am trying to connect using this:

netsh wlan connect Range

But I'm getting this error message:

The network specified by Profile "Range" is not available to connect

How can I connect to my network using netsh wlan connect?

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1 Answer

I had the same problem like you and finally found a solution: The Problem is, that you need a special ad-hoc profile to connect to the network. For some weird reason you can't do that via gui anymore, but you can work direct with netsh wlan:

1. Create a new profile via gui (new connection in the nework center)
2. Choose "connect manual with a network"
3. Type in your network data
4. disable the check box for "start this connection automatically"
5. Now you need to change the connection type to an ad-hoc-network: open command prombt and type netsh wlan set profileparameter name=<YOUR NETWORK NAME> ConnectionType=IBSS
6. In command prombt you can see all networks with netsh wlan show networks - there should be your Ad-Hoc network which you can join now
7. To connect to your network just type netsh wlan connect name=<YOUR NETWORK NAME> - it will use your created profile to join the network

To disconnect later just type

netsh wlan disconnect

and your current connection will be disconnected.

(The exact names may differ from your windows version due to the fact that I just translated them on the fly from my german version)

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