Bridging wifi shouldn't work. Something something only one mac per wifi client. If it works somewhere else they're doing some ebtables/nftables l2 magic.
Wifi extenders are pretty common and somehow manage to do exactly this…
They are probably dumb rebroadcasters which is a bit of a hack, useful in some circumstances but not without causing their own problems.
Can't be that, since they usually also have an ethernet port that they bridge onto.
It can be this. The device is both a wifi client, does L2 magic for the ethernet port (you can't put a switch behind it) and it can rebroadcast wifi signals, because to do so you don't have to be a client to rebroadcast, but you have to half your airtime, so you're halfing your speed.
At least the ones I've used also had their own IP address (for the config interface). Hell, one even had a switch built in! (It was a home router with a pretend-to-be-an-extender mode.)
Vbox makes it work and it’s convenient.
Also VMware player dual screen guest setup is not as good as vbox