   Ever wondered if you could connect 2 laptops via Wi-Fi without the need of any access point? Ever had the need to send a 1GB file to another laptop that's 5 meters away from you and you didn't have Flash Memory or a way to send the file?

   Well in this tutorial I'll explain how you could form a Wi-Fi network without the need of an access point. This tutorial will ONLY explain how to set an Ad-Hoc network, that means I won't explain how to share an internet connection with a Wi-Fi or whatsoever.

   In this tutorial I'll assume that we have 2 laptops and they're both using Windows XP Pro SP2.

You'll have to turn one of the laptops to an Ad-Hoc Server (that's what I call it, I don't know what the actual name is). Here are the steps:

SERVER:

   1- Go to Control Panel then Network Connections
   2- Right Click on your Wireless Connection and choose "Properties"
   3- Click on the "Wireless Networks" tab and clear every "Preferred Networks" to avoid complicity
   4- Click on "Advanced" Button and then choose "Computer-to-Computer (Ad-hoc) networks only" and unset the "Automatically connect to non-preferred networks"
   5- Click on "Add", Choose a name for your Ad-Hoc network and disable the "Data Encryption"
   6- Click on "Generals" tab and click on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and then click on "Properties" button.
   7- Choose "Use the following IP Address" and put "192.168.0.1" as your IP Address and "255.255.255.0" as your Subnet Mask.

Now we're done from the server's side. The pictures below would explain incase you got lost or something:

CLIENT:

   1- Repeat Steps 1 and 2 from Server's settings
   2- Click on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and then click on "Properties"
   3- Choose "Use the following IP Address" and put "192.168.0.XXX" as your IP Address (XXX means a number from 2 to 254, which means you cant use 1 since its already set for the server and you cant use 255 because its used for Broadcast), put "255.255.255.0" as your Subnet Mask and put "192.168.0.1" as your Default Gateway.
   4- Click on "Wireless Networks" and click on "View Wireless Networks"
   5- Let it search for available wireless networks then you'll see your Ad-Hoc Server, Double click on it and connect.

Now you're connecting 2 laptops wirelessly without any access point. Here's the pictures to explain the client's settings if you got lost:

NOTES:

   1- You don't have to use "192.168.0.1" as your Server's IP Address... You can use anything you want as long as you can calculate the IP Addresses and Subnet Masks
   2- You can set WEP\WPA Encryption if you want. I'm only explaining the least things you need to do to set a wireless connection between 2 computers
   3- You can change the SSID to whatever you want. I'm just "Q8GEEKS.ORG" because I'm writing a tutorial in my website
   4- You can share an internet connection (Such as LAN or DSL) but you gotta figure that out yourself or wait till I write another tutorial about it