First, my question, which may be more opinion or preference oriented, but I'll pose it anyway: Which is better to extend your network to one other computer or smartphone: the virtual wifi adapter (soft AP) or an ad hoc network approach (assuming you have two physical adapters)? Second, I've noticed a lot of ambiguous information regarding the windows 7 virtual wifi adapter and internet connection sharing. I read in another post, that it is "in development" and that could explain why, at least, there isn't any really good procedural information for everyday users. There are, of course, a mixture of youtube videos and some third party software, but it certainly appears that more discussion is warranted regarding the worthiness of using the soft AP functionality in Windows 7.Rod Buchanan

If your primary computer is connected through an Ethernet or if you have more than one wireless adapter, then its a matter of choice. But if your primary computer is connected through the wireless adapter and you only have one, then you will have to use the virtual wifi adapter in order to extend your network to one other device. Generally speaking AP to client is more stable than ad hoc network. I haven't used windows soft AP much to comment on its stability though.