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Here are some very easy steps for how to tether your Vista laptop to your iPhone.

First you need to get the following pieces of software:

1. NetShare – this is an iPhone application that bridges your 3G and WiFi radio on the iPhone and creates a SOCKS proxy for your PC. Apple has been publishing and removing this application over the past day, so it might not be available in the Apple Store. Sorry!
2. Proxifier Standard – this is a Windows application that routs all internet traffic on your laptop to your iPhone via the ad-hoc wireless network.

Here is how it works:

[Internet] <-> [3G <-> iPhone running NetShare] <-> Wifi <-> [SOCKS PROXY <-> Vista]

Step 1: Install NetShare and Proxifier

This is easy, install NetShare on the iPhone, and install Proxifier on your laptop.

Step 2: Create an ad hoc wireless network

On your laptop go to the Network and Sharing Center and click Set up a connection or network

Select Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer to computer) network

Give it a Network name (I use iPhone) and set the Security type to No authentication (Open) and click Save this network

note: I plan to test this later using WPA2 Personal since that is far more secure.

Now you are connected to your ad hoc network. In the future you can re-connect to this network by going to the Start Menu and clicking Connect To and then selecting iPhone.

Step 3: Connect your iPhone to the ad hoc wireless network you just created

On your iPhone go to Settings select Wi-Fi and connect to iPhone (or whatever you called the ad hoc network in step 2). Your connection should look like this:

Don’t worry about the IP address , we are going to use a feature called Automatic Private IP Address or Zero Config Networking which will allow iPhone and Vista to talk to each other even though they don’t have a router.

Step 4: Launch NetShare

Now that you have connected your iPhone to the iPhone ad hoc network you should launch NetShare. When you’ve done that you will be greeted with this screen:

Step 5: Launch and configure Proxifier

You’re almost done!

1. Now launch Proxifier and select Proxy Settings… in the Options menu.
2. Click the Add button and type the Proxy IP address in the NetShare application on the iPhone (169.254.206.139 in my case)
3. Enter Port 1080
4. Select SOCKS Version 5
5. Click OK

Step 6: You are done!

If you want to make sure that it’s working you can select the proxy entry you just created and click Check

and go to speedtest.net and measure your performance!

Step 7: Cleanup

When you are done tethering, you should do the following:

1. Disconnect from the iPhone ad hoc network
2. Select Exit from the File menu in Proxifier. If you don’t do this it will continue to run preventing your normal Wifi connection from working.

Notes

• I found that Outlook would not connect to our corporate Exchange server via HTTPS, it was trying TCP/IP. I suspect this is some kind of problem with the SOCKS proxy server. To remedy the problem I forced Outlook to use HTTPS on Slow and Fast connection.
• The iPhone will go to sleep while the NetShare app is running. You need to periodically wake it up.
• the above wireless configuration is an Open network. I plan to test this using something more secure like WPA2.