Seriously people...

After you bridge the connections and it doesn't work, then you get frustrated trying to get the IP addresses figured out, remove the bridge and enable ICS.

It adds processing time by turning a router into a gateway. I haven't worked with bridging in years, but does Windows' not pass DHCP packets or something?

All I know is years ago I tried to do the same thing, take the wifi off of my computer via the ethernet port... I made a bridge. Had to setup static IPs, I could ping other computers on the network but I couldn't get internet.
Then I googled how to do it and felt stupid when I realized all I had to do was right click my wifi connection, click sharing and enable ICS.

John... have a couple cans of Campbells for lunch, pull out a spool of string and she'* all set.

OR better yet, have a big can of bush beans, then turn it into a cantenna. Problem solved. Although you may want to stay away from small unventilated rooms for a while...

I don't recall what bridges do in Windows, but ICS was the way to get it done. HOWEVER, ICS is nothing more than a poor man'* way to set up a network. Its terrible because one computer always has to stay on, and that'* a waste of electricity. Also, if that computer has problems, the whole network goes down.

There are ways to increase signal strength outside of what has been suggested. For exmaple, if your antennas are removable, you could increase the size of the antennas in order to increase your effective range. You would then place a wireless repeater in the guest house, also with a larger antenna, in order to pick up the signal from the house.

I would not use anything by linksys, period. Refurb or not, we had linksys products fail non stop when I worked for trowe.net in Cali. I cannot tell you how many belkin and linksys products we replaced due to failure. The only wireless repeaters we found that were decent were the Trendnet models, and our routers of choice were Netopia routers, which happen to have a $120 price tag for the non-wireless models. The trendnet repeaters also have a detachable antenna so you can upgrade with a larger one, and fortunately there'* also a website where you can get them fairly cheap.

Antennas:
http://www.data-alliance.net/

Access point with repeater function:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-295-_-Product

Do yourself a favor and don't set up ICS. Its really a half assed way to do what you're trying to do.

Cisco bought linksys a couple years ago. I trust anything that Cisco puts out. When I interned at WITS, we would get all sorts of busted Linksys routers, all with firmware problems. We'd flash DDWRT on them and turn around and sell them. My WRT54G is a true linksys too, that'* why it runs linux.

If he'* looking for a temporary extension, ICS should be just fine. If he wanted to permanently run wifi to the guest house, I'd recommend a repeater.

Bridges do in Windows what bridges normally do: bridge two dissimilar networks.

You my friend are severely mistaken. Cisco might have bought out linksys, but that doesn't mean linksys products are made by cisco and with cisco quality standards. Linksys products are crap, pure and simple. Want to see my tower of dead linksys routers? Its more than just firmware. I had to reset mine with DD-WRT every week before I got the trendnet to replace it. Some problems you can alleviate with a firmware upgrade, but some you can't, and the failure rate of Linksys routers that I've come across is higher than any other router I've touched before.

Belkins are the same, been through a couple and while Tommy was helping me last night to setup TCP to make it a repeater, it died. I give up. Went to electronics store today and just bought cat 5 cable. We'll see how it fares under the snow for the winter. I needed something this weekend and could only find NetGear, LinkSys, and Belkin at the local stores. Meh, I let the cable get buried in snow. Outa sight, outa mind.