Unable to share internet by using HOSTEDNETWORK after installing AVAST recently

Question

I was able to share my laptop's internet with my smartphone by using this command "netsh wlan start hostednetwork". But when I installed Avast in my Windows 8 OS, I am able to start the hostednetwork as before and my smartphone also finds the virtual AP but still I can't use internet on the smartphone. It's like the internet sharing has been disabled by the Antivirus. How do I tell Avast that its okay to use the hostednetwork?

Answer 1

Type:

netsh wlan show hostednetwork

this will show your hostednetwork status, see is it running. If yes then go to your network adapter settings and find your virtual WiFi. In its sharing properties make sure you got all the box checked to let all the net traffic through. You can also look here: LINK

Answer 2

Yeah I had the same problem. Its due to avast firewall. One easy solution is to disable avast for the time you are using internet on mobile. This can be done by right click on the Quick launch icon of avast.

Other solution is to allow internet sharing in firewall settings of avast. First Find the Active protection window in the avast. It can be found in settings tab of avast. It shows all the shields avast is currently using.

In the firewall , click on customize option and select Policies tab

So you have to check mark the Internet sharing mode and click OK. Immediately you get internet to your smartphone.

Answer 3

Open your registry editor, (run, regedit) then go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters.

Look for the the IRPStackSize entry. If it's there, modify the value to 16 or higher depending on your use. If the entry is not there, (maybe Avast might have deleted it) then create a new one as a DWORD, and make sure your spelling is correct as such: IRPStackSize. Then modify it again to set the value, (size) at 16 or higher.

Then Reboot.

Problem will be solved. As it did in my case.

Answer 4

So far responses from the other users where necessary for me specially for the Avast configuration (NightKn8, Shanks, Vishwesh GM), but I still needed more things extra:

Like the question says, the only way it worked for me to get IP address from the tethered device is using the command line and never by the Win10 user interface (see this thread), i'll include it here for completeness:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=HOTSPOT_WIFI_NAME key=HOTSPOT_PASSW
netsh wlan start hostednetwork

Then, you need to open the properties of the SecureLine adapter or whichever is active for you from Avast VPN, go to the second tab Shared usage and enable the first check (at least) of allowing other networks' users to connect here.

And the main key point I needed was to wait, wait, and wait a lot to get internet conectivity until Win10 starts doing it's work (see this question at SuperUser which really helped me as well). It was something like 1 minute or so until windows starting routing the Hotspot adapter to the Avast SecureLine adapter.