Windows 7 share internet connection with multiple network interfaces

Solution 1:

It is really easy but I wasted 3 hours to find how to do this:

1. Disable internet connection sharing if you have enabled it before

2. Select both LAN adapters TO WHICH YOU WANT SHARE INTERNET(by holding Ctrl and clicking on LAN cards)

3. Right click on one of selected and chose from dropdown menu "create bridge connection (or similar)"

4. From now all LAN settings of these LAN cards you should enter in now created bridge connection

5. Now use the standard internet connection sharing to this brige from the LAN adapter which connects to network.

Solution 2:

Interestingly, I had to directly assign the bridge connection an address in the 192.168.137.0/24 network (subnet mask 255.255.255.0). Until I did this, none of the member NICs/virtual switches were able to receive or pass DHCP data or route to the main internet connection.

1. Select the NICs that need to share access to the internet connected NIC (not including the internet connected network interface) with Ctrl + primary click.

2. Right-click after the group is selected and either create a new bridge, or add them to an existing bridge.

3. Assign a static IP address to the Bridge (I only know the IPv4 range for Windows ICS). I used 192.168.137.2 (just in case .1 is used internally. It probably isn't).

4. If any network connections aren't passing at this point, disconnect and reconnect them, or disable and re-enable them.

5. Turn on Internet Connection Sharing from the Sharing tab of your Internet-connected interface's properties applet, and share it with the bridge

   Source: I'm a 10+ year veteran of networking who just had to set up a small private network at work for my personal Hyper-v server on a Windows 10 laptop that I can connect to from my workstation and access my VM server applications and also has access to the internet, but isn't connected to the corporate network and won't ever attempt to act as a default gateway for my internal or internet traffic, but without proper routing equipment (just an unmanaged switch and a mobile hotspot). This works, and I'm still shocked.

Something I forgot to mention! Another fun oddity is the fact that the address of the bridge becomes the default gateway for anything that has to communicate with the bridge. It makes sense based on the name, but I thought it would act more like a switch, given the fact that it has to use the ICS IP address range. (192.168.137.x)