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How can I connect wireless network adapter to VMWare workstation ?(My Host OS is Windows 7 Ultimate, my Guest OS is Fedora 13 & my VMWare version is 6.5.0) I'm running Windows 7 on my Dell Vostro A860 laptop & my wireless network adapter is Atheros.

zeFree
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Ehsan Khodarahmi
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7 Answers7

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Workstation doesn't have a wireless NIC type, so direct wireless hardware access is out. If you just want to access through the extant host wireless connection, bridging is your answer.

I think the only way to get a wireless NIC dedicated to the VM would be using a USB wireless NIC as a USB-passthrough device on the VM. When you have Workstation running and a USB device plugged in, it should give you an option to change whether that device is connected to the host or to the VM.

Evan Powell
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    I think you are right, I couldn't find anything in VMWare for doing that. So I just installed my OS out of VMWare beside windows. – Ehsan Khodarahmi Jan 08 '11 at 12:47
  • To add to Evan's answer, for bridge networking to use your wifi interface, you need to change vmnet01's settings. Please see below article on how to do that.. http://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-10/index.jsp#com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-4D35D1FC-5926-45A8-96B1-42C922DA97E9.html – BTR Naidu Feb 26 '14 at 11:06
  • To BTR Naidu,, what you said is very very helpful, help me alot, thank you. – shawn xy bai Jun 23 '14 at 05:59
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  1. Add a local loop network in your normal PC (search google how to)
  2. Click start -> type "ncpa.cpl" hit enter to open network connections.
  3. While pressing Ctrl key, select both your wireless and recently created local loop network. right click on it and create the bridge.
  4. Now in virtual network editor in vmware, select the network with type "Bridged" and change Bridged to option to the recently created bridge.

You will then have access to network via wifi card.

Leolove
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    Repeated your steps to the letter - Still no dice. The bridged wireless does not work. – mark Apr 29 '13 at 02:37
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Use a Linux Live cd/usb and boot an that to be able to directly connect to your wifi hardware or use linux as the main OS with direct access to the wifi card and then use windows as a guest os, I know that this maybe not the ideal way but it will work.

Pär Särnö
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I also encountered a similar problem. I run Ubuntu 11.04 on VMware on a Windows 7 host OS. Virtual machines can't expose the physical wireless cards. All of that is using a virtualization layer.

Du-Lacoste
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Since there is only one WiFi hardware on the computer its not possible to connect one WiFi hardware to multiple WiFi networks, if you want to that I think you have to map WiFi hardware to guest OS and how host you'll have to use some other hardware (may be Ethernet) but I'm sure that it will work in that way as no VM software allow us to allocate Hardware to Guest except for USB, you can also get USB WiFI and allocate that to VM only.

Dharman
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Ahmed
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Here is a simple way to connect with your WIFI -

  1. Click on Edit from the menu section
  2. Virtual Network Editor
  3. Change Settings
  4. Add Network
  5. Select a network name
  6. Select Bridged option in VMnet Information -> Bridge to : Automatic
  7. Apply

That's it. You might be asked password to connect. Add it and you would be able to connect to the network.

Kind Regards,

Rahul Tilloo

Rahul Tilloo
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Change your network adapter to a bridged connection, this will directly connect to your computers physical network.

Jon
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  • I did it before but it had no effect !(I need to connect my wireless adapter to my virtual machine because I want to scan a wireless network with airodump-ng) – Ehsan Khodarahmi Jan 05 '11 at 10:55
  • See if you can find a solution on this thread: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/70896 – Jon Jan 05 '11 at 21:53
  • Using the bridged connection only works if you are connected via LAN cable this option does not work for WiFi adapter in VMWare – user1911091 Dec 29 '21 at 12:32