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When I establish an access point via the netshell utility (netsh wlan start hostednetwork), I want all connected clients to be directed to the same page (preferably localhost) - regardless, which URL they are entering. I know this is very similar to a captive portal system or a custom DNS Server. I am researching for months now, but found no solution so far. In Linux, it seems to be much easier, but I need a windows solution.

=== Why I need this === Since sometimes it is necessary to know the reason of the project, I will explain now. I am creating a (HTML5-based) game for multiple players (all in the same room). They log into the netsh-access point (a notebook running apache) via mobile devices, open the browser and see their control-console/game information etc. Since I don't want to tell everyone to enter something complicated like "192.168.173.1" to type into their Adress bar, (not everyone is a nerd) I'm looking for a solution where they can type in ANYTHING and still get to the right page. I need it for windows, because this system is for multiple people, all of which have windows-notebooks (and I don't want to force them to install Linux).

I greatly appreciate your help and advices.

Doc Brown
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  • Does the laptop you mention have a DHCP service? If not where is the DHCP service? – Χpẘ Nov 17 '15 at 00:37
  • I assume it has, because you don't have to configure any client device when sharing internet via the hosted network. And there are some possibilities to configure and alter DHCP via netsh. You mean in DHCP might lie a solution? What should I look out for? – Doc Brown Nov 17 '15 at 09:37
  • I don't really understand the setup you describe in the 2nd paragraph. If the laptop does have DHCP, why not add a DNS service to it. If the addresses of the client devices are all 192.168.x.x then the network is private and the DNS server can server domain names that are unregistered. But, again, I don't understand the setup. – Χpẘ Nov 17 '15 at 19:11

1 Answers1

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How about this way?

  1. Create a shortcut which redirects to "192.168.173.1"
  2. Use Group Policy to put this shortcut the general user profile, thus every user will see the shortcut on his/her desktop
York Mak
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