From the course: Working and Collaborating Online

Connect a Windows 10 device to the internet using Wi-Fi

From the course: Working and Collaborating Online

Connect a Windows 10 device to the internet using Wi-Fi

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- [Instructor] Wi-Fi networks allow you to get online without the use of a wired ethernet connection in places like your home or office, or in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, and so on. Let's take a look at how to connect to a Wi-Fi network on a Windows 10 computer. The first step is to check your Wi-Fi status, which you can see in the right hand side of the task bar at the bottom of your screen. Notice this icon that looks like a globe, which you can think of as representing the worldwide web. If I roll my mouse over that icon, I can see a message telling me I'm not currently connected to a network and it says no connections are available. Now I know for a fact that there are Wi-Fi networks where I am right now. So this probably means that the Wi-Fi on my computer is turned off. So I need to turn it back on. I can do that simply by clicking this icon. Here I'll click Wi-Fi. I've re-enabled Wi-Fi on my computer and now I see a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks along with their signal strength. The more bars you see in the icon next to the network, the stronger the connection. Generally, the stronger the connection, the faster and more consistent the Wi-Fi performance will be. So you can see, I only have a couple bars down on this network here, a few more here. But here at the top, we see full strength Wi-Fi signals. In most cases, you'll want to connect to a network whose name you recognize. This might be your home or office network or a network in the coffee shop you're sitting in. You'll also usually see the word secured under the Wi-Fi network name, indicating that the network is password protected. You can connect to networks that are labeled open, but they'll often be set up with other security measures that require you to validate your identity before allowing you to fully connect. As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't connect to unknown networks as a matter of etiquette, but also for security reasons. In this case, I do know that this one in particular is a trusted network, so I'll select it. If I want to automatically connect to this network in the future, I'll make sure connect automatically is checked. And then I'll click connect. I'm prompted to enter the password. If you're connecting to your own network, you should know the password. If you're connecting to a Wi-Fi network at a business or a shop, you may have to ask for the password. For security, the password is displayed as dots. But if you want, you can check that you're typing it correctly by clicking and holding on this eye icon. When you release that button, it'll go back to being dots. Once you enter the password, click next. Depending on how your computer is configured, you may see this message asking if you want your computer to be seen by other computers on the network. If you're connecting to your home or office network, click yes. Being able to see other computers on your network makes it easy to transfer files between them. Now I see the message that I'm connected to my Wi-Fi network. So I can open up my internet browser and start visiting websites.

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