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[Gushie]

I have seen this question asked a number of times and i have asked myself but i could never find a guide on how to get XP bridging to work with my xbox. I finally sat down and gave it a whirl and now have my XP on my local network (using smb shares my internet gateway the whole 9 yards).

Basic Network Diagram

XBOX <---- (X-Over Cable) ----> (Laptop) <<----- (Wireless Card) ---->> (( Rest Of Local Network ))

Its not a great diagram but it does the job, what i wanted was to be able to 'see' the XBOX on the rest of the network, so i wanted the XP laptop to have the LAN adapter (X-Over Cable) bridged with the wireless adapter.  That way any network request the XBOX makes gets passed VIA the laptop and out to the wireless and vice versa.

Whats needed

Laptop with working Wireless (You can browse the internet access shares etc)
Working DHCP server (Usually your router does this)

Steps

 - First DONOT statically assign the xbox or the laptops lan adapter any ip address
 - In XP go to network properties and highlight you lan adapter and wireless adapter,right click choose brdige (If you get a warning/error after the brdige is created reboot your laptop and it will appear)
 - Make sure you wireless still works (just open firefox/ie and connect to google etc)
 - Now plug the X-Over cable in to the XBOX and in to the Laptop
 - Turn the Xbox on and let it go the M$ Dash
 - Check in Network settings everything is set to DHCP
 - Reboot and go to XMBC/EvoX which ever dash you have installed
 - You should be able to see in the network settings you have an IP address on the same subent as your wireless.
 - Thats it, N.B. you might/might not have NETBios requests forwarded it depends on your router if you dont you will have to a) have a local DNS zone or remeber the ip's on your local network

Trouble Shooting

 - Mostly this either works or i doesnt
 - If your wireless card stops after the bridge is made check M$ KB as there are a few cards that have to forced in to compatability mode
 - If you arent getting a DHCP address on your XBOX but everything else works assign one statically and see if you can ping your xbox from any other machine (not your laptop as its plugged in to that)
 - Sometimes i found i had to boot the M$ Dash first then i would reboot and load XBMC
 - check the firewall on XP isnt stopping anything

thats about it, i hope someone finds this usefull as ICS isnt the greatest thing.

thanks
G