Q:

Connecting two machines wirelessly without router or ad-hoc network

I have been struggling to find a definitive way to be able to connect my two computers wirelessly without a router and without setting up an ad-hoc network. I really hoped it would be as simple as changing my network adapter settings to have static IPs, say 192.168.5.10 on the first machine and then 192.168.5.11 on the other machine. But unfortunately, I can't even see these IPs on the output of ipconfig (or ifconfig). I have been researching this for quite a bit and no success yet... Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!!

A:

Check WiFi-direct - it's designed for your use case. However, currently it's only supported by mobile devices (Android or iOS).
On desktop, maybe you could install an app and make one machine itself behave as a router, and let the other one connect to it. But I guess this solution doesn't solve your problem since it's no better than ad hoc mode.
The last solution I would suggest is a little painful: record MAC addresses of both machines, and generate the MAC frame by yourself somehow. This requires interception into the WiFi driver.

