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I would like to bridge my two Network cards so that I can share my wireless internet connection. I have 1 Wirless Lan card and one 10/100 Bit Lan card. The problem I have is when I go to the properties of the 2 Nic cards and Uncheck Internet connection sharing and then I go to bridge the 2 cards it still says that internet connect is enabling and so I cannot bridge the 2 connections. I dont know what else I can do to disable internet connection sharing, as far as I am aware the only place to disable it is where I have looked in the properties of the 2 cards. I am running Windows XP Pro. Can anybody help? Thanks, Chris

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Short clarification and a few practical steps that build on 's point: bridging and Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) are different solutions. If the goal is simply to let other PCs on the wired NIC use the wireless Internet, ICS (NAT + DHCP) is the correct feature. A network bridge makes two adapters behave as one single LAN segment and will only work if the wireless adapter and the access point can forward traffic for other MAC addresses — many client‑mode Wi‑Fi drivers and consumer APs do not support that, so a bridge either fails or appears to work but no traffic passes.

If you still want to try a bridge, Windows will refuse while ICS is active because ICS sets its own IP/DHCP/NAT bindings. Try this sequence (do not skip the service step):

  • Open Services (Start > Run > services.msc). Find "Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)" (service name SharedAccess), stop it and set the startup type to Manual or Disabled.
  • Reboot to clear any leftover bindings.
  • In Network Connections, confirm the Internet-facing adapter no longer has sharing enabled (Advanced tab) and does not have the ICS-assigned IP (commonly 192.168.0.1).
  • Select both NICs, right-click and choose "Bridge Connections".

If the bridge can be created but clients still have no Internet, it’s almost always a wireless-driver/AP limitation. Practical alternatives: re-enable ICS on the wireless adapter (that will NAT and give wired clients Internet), use a cheap hardware router, or use an AP/adapter that supports "client-to-LAN" bridging or AP mode.

If problems persist after these steps, update or reinstall the NIC drivers, check Event Viewer for errors, and verify interface IPs with ipconfig /all.

Member Avatar for DMR

I would like to bridge my two Network cards so that I can share my wireless internet connection.... when I go to the properties of the 2 Nic cards and Uncheck Internet connection sharing and then I go to bridge the 2 cards it still says that internet connect is enabling and so I cannot bridge the 2 connections. I dont know what else I can do to disable internet connection sharing...

Why are you trying to disable ICS? Unless there's something about your description that I'm misunderstanding, ICS is exactly what you want.

Manually configuring a simple network bridge only allows computers on two separate physical network segments to all connect to the same logical network/subnet. It does not configure the bridging computer to act as a router, which is what you would need to allow the computers on your home network to connect to another (physically and logically) separate network

When you run the Network/ICS wizard though, it does more that just create a bridge- it essentially configures the ICS computer as a router by acting as a DHCP and DNS server for the LAN-side machines, and enabling the Windows firewall on the Internet-facing NIC.

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