Dear list,

Simulating an AP in a Windows environment proofed impossible as I tried so many (free) software packages promising to share my internet connection with multiple clients...

At some point, I hit this blog entry:
http://macbruins.com/category/linux/openwrt-linux/

Perfect! As I have come to understand: hardware virtualization, and USB redirection into that virtual environment, is the only means to have a WiFi device operate in 'infrastructure mode' "under" (but isolated from) Windows. Well.. Good luck with it!

With all respect, I found support for USB WiFi hardware by OpenWRT poorly documented -- that is: which hardware, **currently available in (web)shops**, can be used? Hard question to answer by Googling.

After a first failure (D-Link DWA 160, not supported / dectected by OpenWRT), the next was a hit: Conceptronic C300RU. It was only after unwrapping the packaging that I found out I was shipped version 3. It is not listed on Linux Wireless, but works fine. Well... Almost. I got some driver error, suggesting the invocation of unsupported functions on the driver when operating in the 11ng hardware mode (11b worked fine, but is rather slow)

It was by this forum post:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=27226
that I ended up replacing the rt2870.bin, downloading the latest version from:
http://www.ralinktech.com

Virtualising a Wireless Access Point comes in handy in situations where you don't have a power grid available. Archaeological fieldwork is one of many examples of this type of working environment. Yet, using OpenWRT + VMWare + a Wifi USB dongle makes connecting more-than-two devices possible.

Now, that's what I call Wireless Freedom. Thank you guys.