Connecting via Miracast to the Surface Hub is a very common scenario. To get this scenario to work, you need the sending device (mobile phone, laptop) to connect to the Surface Hub using a WIFI Direct connection. In some cases, this can fail due to a few reasons. Here are a few steps you can try to troubleshoot this problem:

• Make sure your sending device supports Miracast: Press WinKey + R and type dxdiag. Click on  “Save all information” – open the saved dxdiag.txt – look for Miracast. It should say “Available, with HDCP”

• If the Connect app displays: “The device doesn’t support Miracast, so you can’t project to it wirelessly.” Please go to Settings -> Network -> WIFI and enable WIFI.

• Update the drivers on the laptop for WIFI and video (you can also try uninstalling them and then reinstalling them)

• Hit the WinWey + R and type “rsop.msc” to execute the “Resultant Set of Policy” MMC snap-in.  It’ll take a moment to analyze the group policies currently applied on the client. In the left hand window, navigate to Computer Configuration->Windows Settings->SecuritySettings->Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies.  In the right-hand pane you should see a group policy object setting wireless policies. Double click it and a dialog will appear. Open the Network Permissions tab and check the value of the “Allow everyone to create all user profiles” box, as pictured here.

This value has to be selected, this will enable your sending device to create an ad-hoc network which is needed to send the video stream to the Surface Hub. Ensure that “Don’t allow Wi-Fi Direct groups” is checked off.  Wi-Fi Direct provides the functionality the allows direct device-to-device connectivity for Miracast; allowing a display device and other sources to discover each other.  This setting can also be manually changed in the registry by deleting the “Windows XP” folder found under ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWireless.  A reboot is required after making this change.

• Change the default band used by Miracast on the Surface Hub: Settings – This device – Wireless Projection – Miracast Channel. Here you can test with the default, if that does not work, try one of the bands supported in your region (search for “Miracast” on the page). If you are seeing slow refresh speeds, you might want to use of the 5 GHz bands, as the 5 GHz spectrum is generally less crowded.

Important Note –  Once you changed the channel on the Hub, you need to reboot the Hub before testing again, else the change will not be effective.

• In some cases, third party Anti-Virus software can prevent Miracast connections taking place. Please use a test machine to test by uninstalling the Anti-Virus software, reboot and then try again.

• An enabled firewall rule may also cause Miracast connections issues. Add a firewall rule which allows for service “C:WindowsSystem32WUDFHost.exe” – Allow INOUT connections for TCP and UDP protocols. Ports: All