Connecting Virtual Network on ESXi with VMware Workstation Network..

On the Windows laptop I have VMware Workstation installed, A Firewall VM (firewallwm, 192.168.10.3) is running on it with the network 192.168.28.0 / 27 behind it.

I wanted to connect the network running on ESXi (10.0.64.0) to VMware Workstation's network 192.168.28.0 on my laptop. I tried many things like route add 192.168.10.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.99.0, ICS (Internet Connection Sharing), putting the VMware Workstation's Host-Only network in 192.168.10.0, none of these worked, the Dell Server would just not ping the Host-Only (192.168.10.2) interface even though both (dell and VMware Workstation Host-Only) were in the same network.

I eventually Bridged the windows Ethernet LAN (Connected to Dell) to a Host-Only NIC of VMware Workstation (192.168.10.1), and finally got it working but every now and then the Bridge causes BSoD with Bridge.sys file.

I need to know how can get the 2 networks connected without a Windows Bridge, is there any router software I can use, or any other way.

I have also created a firewall VM with a Bridged NIC in VMware Workstation - 192.168.1.11

ESXi - 192.168.1.18

Dell - 192.168.1.19

Windows - 192.168.1.20

Basically all in .1 subnet to see what all pings.

Windows can ping and connect normally with the ESXi but not the other way around, and so nothing on ESXi can ping anything on VMware Workstation either.

Any other way I can get this working