Q: Windows won't connect to iphone 5 wifi hotspot

Yes, I would find out what wifi protocols the laptop will connect to. So you say the wifi is showing in the laptop as an available network, but will not connect. Is that what you are saying?

It sounds as if you are right regarding the wifi hotspot running under a protocol the laptop cannot connect to. Don't know of a way to repair that, since the wifi is an integral component of the laptop.

I have iPhone 5 running IOS 6 on T-Mobile with AUTHORIZED personal hotspot service.  iPhone worked fine w/ iPad, but not w/ laptop.

I read the Trouble shooting link you posted:  http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2756  & it worked.  Resetting my wireless connections worked.

Thanks!!

I'm having a similar problem with my iPhone 5 hotspot. The hotspot works with no apparent issues with my Nexus tablet. The hotspot seems to work with a laptop only via USB. If I try to use wireless, it keeps dropping all three of my laptops.  Two run Vista, one runs Win 8. I've reset the network settings and completely restored the phone after that failed. Still no progress. Unlike Brazosdog02, mine will connect for a short time, but then it changes to "Limited Connectivity" and the laptops stop getting data. If I toggle the hotspot on and off, it'll work with the laptops for a few minutes, but then stops again almost immediately or if I'm lucky in a few minutes.

my iphone 4?s worked fine as a hotspot on my win 7 laptop, as long as i had usb connection. never managed to get wireless or bluetooth to the iphone.

now i have a work laptop HP envy4520s running win 8 and the same iphone will 'see' it via usb and 'connect' as hotspot but then does not allow downloading of any internet pages. very frustrating and i have spent a fair amount of time fiddling with settings and looking through support networks to no avail.

I am running into the same problem as the OP on a Vista machine. It works fine with a tether but once you try to use it over wifi it can't connect. I have tried all the above fixes including those here.

When I dig into this more; the phone is rejecting the authentication from the laptop. During the connection process you will see it connect (on the ipone) then about 2 seconds later you see the connection failed on the computer.

When I trace all the logs back I eventually find that the connection is getting rejected for having mismatched passwords. These do indeed match; so what is it on the iphone that is rejecting this?

Any advice/help will be appreciated.

I also couldn't connect to Windows at first, in my case it was as simple as changing the name of the iPhone. The name of my iphone was "Joe's iPhone" and Windows couldn't display the apostrophe correctly and couldn't connect. To fix this, go to iTunes>iPhone>Click on name of iPhone>Edit it to something like "iPhone - Joe". You should be able to connect.    

I was having the same problem with my iPhone 5 hotspot using wifi, buletooth or usb when trying to connect to a Windows7 laptop (Samsung).  Turns out that the laptop was "remembering" an old hotspot wifi password and not asking for a new one. I kept getting "unable to connect to iPhone".  What I did was go into the network settings on the Laptop "Open Network and Sharing Center" and click on the right side tab to "Manage Network Connections".  All of your previous wifi connections will show up. If your Iphone is on the list, click on it and then delete it and then try to connect to the iPhone hotspot. It will now ask you for the wifi password.  In my case this did the trick and now I can connect.

Thanks this solved the problem such a simple thing in the end, had been struffling for months!!

mmarinov wrote:

 

I also couldn't connect to Windows at first, in my case it was as simple as changing the name of the iPhone. The name of my iphone was "Joe's iPhone" and Windows couldn't display the apostrophe correctly and couldn't connect. To fix this, go to iTunes>iPhone>Click on name of iPhone>Edit it to something like "iPhone - Joe". You should be able to connect.    

I meant to respond to this suggestion. Thank a million worked perfectly such an easy fix had been struggling for months!

This solved my problem thanks

changing the name of the iphone solve my problem too Thank you very much!!

See this post of mine for a possible solution. Has been working for the past year and a half. I had similar issue where I could use my iphone 5 as hotspot via usb, but could not use wireless hotspot even though I saw my phone in list of networks and can click on Connect

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5020889