Windows 8 & Hyper-V Can't Bridge Wifi Connection

Question

So I have an odd issue that I can't quite figure out... I am running Windows 8 Enterprise on a Dell 6420 laptop. I have a Broadcom 802.11n wireless adapter. I am connected to an home router (Netgear WNDR3700) that is connected to the internet. It is a very simple home network setup. I am trying to stand-up a few VMs in Hyper-V and want the VMs to be able to access the internet over my wireless connection. I have found numerous examples of how to set this up using both External and Internal Virtual Switches but have yet to be able to get it to work on my machine.

I have narrowed the issue down to the fact that my host machine always loses internet connection when I bridge my wifi connection (both when it is bridged automatically by windows when I setup an external virtual switch bound to the wifi adapter or if I do it manually by creating an internal virtual switch, right click on it and my wifi network and select "Bridge Connections".) In both cases after the bridge is established, my host machine can no longer connect to the internet. I am not sure where to start with troubleshooting this problem. After the bridge is setup, an ipconfig shows all netowrk devices on the machine as "Media Disconnected". I do know that the wireless adapter is connected to the router b/c it shows the connection as active and full-strength.

The only thing I can possibly think of is that this machine also has the Cisco VPN client installed on it which installs a Cisco Virtual Network Adapter. Is it possible that this Cisco Virtual Adapter is causing me issues when I try to bridge? I saw some people had a similar issue with a VirtualBox virtual adapter when trying to share via Hyper-V.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to troubleshoot?

Answer 1

Should have tried it before I ever posted, when all else fails, reboot!

Went back and setup an external virtual switch bound to my wireless card, as before lost internet after setup completed. This time I rebooted the machine, after reboot I had internet connection and now my VMs can access the bridged connection.

Once again thanks to the old 3-finger-salute, problem solved, crisis averted, town saved.

Answer 2

I had similar issue.

You need to follow a certain step to enable Internet on both Guest and Host. You have to enable "Allow management operating system to share this network adapter". Create an external network connection with this check mark set, allowing guests to have internet connection. Uncheck this feature, apply settings and than redo. Check > Apply > Uncheck > Apply > Check > Apply.

Maybe this help. I read it somewhere but not able to locate it again.

Answer 3

Without rebooting I managed to get it working

Open the network connections control panel

You'll see the virtual adapter setting has created a network bridge.

Right click on your Wi-Fi adapter (the one with the signal strength) and select Connect/Disconnect

Then you have to click the On switch that comes up in the sidebar and select your network. For some reason it was Off even though I was online before.

Everything then magically lit up and I was able to access the internet from within my Win XP VM immediately.

Answer 4

I had the same issue. Following steps from this site solved the issue.

On VM

1. Delete external switch from the virtual machine.
2. Keep/create internal switch and use it with the virtual machine.

On network adapter

1. Go to wifi network adapter. Right mouse click to open properties of the Wifi Adapter.
2. On the sharing tab of the Properties window tick "Allow other network user to connect through this computer's internet connection"