Re: XP wireless questions ...setting encryption
- From: "SL" <pillott@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:00:43 -0500
Thanks much Jeff,
You answered my questions quite well. I will look into some of the options
you mention for Win2000. The only trouble is time, its not on my side.. :)
I think my issue with Win2k is my associating IE (which comcast is
requiring) to find the wireless adaptor like it looks for the LAN. I simply
do not have any personal experience with that OS. Plus, the machines I seem
to of have run into are slow by todays standards, and the customers seem to
even more outdated than the machine. Lots of reboots and every possible
popup from their leftover AOL dialup connection. I don't think I need to
say more on that issue.
Sorry, I may be sounding malicious. Thats not my intent. I average about
a 12-14 hour day and a slow pc with bloatware will test the nerves.
Anyways, in regards to the brand of gateway, I guess they seem the same to
me for the most part. I never use the Linksys software for drivers. I can
agree with your comment. I as a matter of fact made my fellow tech's a disk
with the current drivers from their site. I test stuff on my personal pc's
at home and found the current drivers are always better. I guess thats
pretty much a universal thing with all pc stuff. Im more of a hardware guy.
I certainly know the "latest drivers" issue. Plus, I found that the
pc/laptop that some other techs load the packeged software/drivers make
things difficult. The linksys software that loads will prevent WinXp from
running the show and usually never connects. If I load drivers only, and
let WinXp/98 etc... take over, there are no issues.
Anyways Jeff, you have been quite helpful. Any other tips of course are
appreciated.
Happy St. Patricks day by the way...
SL
"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:p1lm12t7lbspku09s5paab3vmcg2i00fro@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 06:55:48 -0500, "SL" <pillott@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
1- I put in the wep key when I try to connect with whatever wireless
computer. I then go to the properties and also paste the wep key in the
two
places there. I keep the option of "shared" instead of open. I also
uncheck the "enable 802.1x authentification". Then usually hit "ok" and
then get out of the menus. I will often reboot the pc in question and
connect to make sure all is well. Should these steps be taken? Are they
correct for a minimal setup with encryption enabled? Why is it sometimes
the wep key is not saved in the options menu for the network; I sometimes
have to repeat this step twice?
Sorta.
802.1x authentication is only used with WPA encryption. It can be
used with WEP or no encryption, but requires a RADIUS server to do the
authentication. If you have XP SP2 installed, the selection of 802.1x
should be automaticly set correctly. However, SP1 and before allow
you to turn on 802.1x authentication, when it's not needed, resulting
in a disconnect after 10 minutes.
As for open versus shared authentication, the correct answer is open.
Shared means shared key, which for WEP uses the encryption key for
authentication. This give a sniffer both the encrypted and
unencrypted keys, which makes WEP key recovery almost trivial. It
should be set to open, not shared.
http://seclists.org/lists/security-basics/2005/Jan/0094.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Networking/Q_21459081.html
2- What are the minimal steps necessary to make Win 2000 Pro get onto a
wireless network (assuming the network card drivers are installed). Is
this
the same sort of procedures you would use for Win95 as well? The two look
similar in that respect.
Hopefully, you're not doing any Windoze 95 installs. The steps for
Win2000 are roughly the same as for XP and are usually detailed in the
documentation for the wireless client. The problem is that you have a
choice of wirless clients. There's:
1. The manufacturers client program (e.g. Intel Proset)
2. Windoze Wireless Zero Config
3. Boingo client.
4. T-Mobile (Starbucks) client.
5. Odyssy client (Funk Software)
6. A few dozen others.
7. Add some network front end programs. (Toshiba Config-Free, IBM
Thinkvantage)
Obviously, the proceedures vary. However, all of these have some type
of "search for wireless networks" feature. Use it, double click on
the network name, and enter the encryption key. For WEP, if the ASCII
encryption key fails, then try again with the HEX version of the key.
The two manufacturers I use are primarily Linksys and Netgear. These are
the ones they offer from my company.
Well, time for some heresy. Both these vendors have some products
with broken drivers. The very first thing I do is download the
lastest update from their web pile. I don't even bother trying what's
in the box. For Linksys, I kinda prefer Windoze Wireless Zero Config.
For Netgear, FirstGear is quite good and useful.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
.
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