Another Linksys question

Factual Questions
1

Yes, I searched and didn’t see this particular one, so it’s off to the Teeming Millions to correct my ignorance.

A few days ago, the Daughter and I were picking her up a new laptop. Actually, a pretty nice HP, marked down to an obscene number. While there, I was looking at a new wireless router as well. This puppy here.

This afternoon, I had some time, slipped the fancy step by step CD in and let her rip. Sitting on the floor with my laptop (Dell Precision 6300, with XP), I went through each step and in minutes, I was set.

I went downstairs to the Wife’s Presario (But it’s so cuuute! ) and managed to find the connection, and get on. That is also running XP.

NOW, I go to the New Kid on the Block. The fancy HP running Vista. Vista is not winning me over, but I’ve only played a little. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what I’m doing wrong here. The network’s there, I can see it. It tells me I’m connected, but it won’t give me access to the router even to the point where I can get to a password screen - the password I set for the WPA. At some point (the mind was mush by this time) I go somewhere where the infernal machine gave me a drop down with my network’s name, I checked that and got a screen with the name, the security level, and some 50 character password, which I could either use or replace with the one I used on setup.

Neither worked and I got messages telling me I wasn’t connecting.

My head hurts, what do I need?

I have a hunch, which I’ll try in the morning, which is to have my cable company reset my IP address.

Besides that, I’m in your hands.

2

A wild guess: I know XP wireless drivers usually come with a configuration utility, but I’ve found that the Windows wireless configuration usually works well enough. Maybe you need to find a setting that will let Vista manage the wireless connections?

Can you give any more detail on the error messages you get when you try to connect?

3

For all its faults Vista is typically much more net aware and easier to setup and connect wirelessly than XP. I suspect you need to review your Vista net logon settings for completeness. Re logon if you are using WPA the router should be asking you for a shorter alphanumeric “key” password not the whole long digital key.

If the one XP notebook is working I don’t think resetting your cable IP address is going to help. Try hard resetting the router and then configuring it with a PC wired directly to for configuring the initial setup parameters.

In my experience router setups usually go much easier with XP and Vista if you skip the provided router setup CD and let windows handle setup through the OS, as sometimes applets these programs install can supercede and interfere with the OSes management of wireless connection,.

4

I fully agree with the two previous posters. Hardware makers provide the public with notoriously screwy wireless connectivity software… Not that it is flawed, but rather beats to a different drum that the user has to learn all the intricacies.

Since you are (futilely) contemplating having the “cable company reset my IP address”, that leads me to think you may not know the difference between WEP and WPA.

XP is WEPcentric and Vista veritably embraces WPA if you are reliant on the wizards.

5

It’s a bit difficult for me to figure out from your post exactly what’s happening.

In general, a new machine is often configured so the utility handling the wireless configuration is not the Windows utility–it might be the utility that came with the wireless card. If that’s the case, you’ll never see the place where you enter your wireless key in the Windows utility.

So step number one is to make sure you are using the right configuration utility on the laptop.

Second, remember that seeing your SSID and connecting to your access point is not the same as the access point (your wireless router) giving you permission to use it for Internet and Network access–that’s what the password does, and it sounds like you haven’t found the place to enter that.

Third, you mention “access to the router.” I think you mean “access to the field where I enter the key on the wireless card in the laptop so I can use the wireless router.” This is not “access to the router” in the normal sense; that usually means access to the router admin screen (usually 192.168.1.1 for the router you have) which can be done wirelessly (once you enter the key) but should be done via a cabled connection. It is not a good idea to change wireless settings wirelessly b/c if you screw them up you’ll be in a catch-22: can’t get back on to change the settings so you can get back on.

To put it simply: is it the case that your laptop can see your wireless network (called the SSID)–whatever you named it? If so, is it the case you cannot make the laptop connect successfully to the Internet even though it seems to “connect” to your SSID access point (the access point just means the wireless router broadcasting the SSID)? If so, is it the case you can’t find the appropriate field in which to enter your wireless key on the laptop?

If all of those are the case, my bet is you are not using the right configuration utility on the laptop. There will be at least two: Vista’s and whatever HP loaded. Find the right one and use it, or else click the little box that says “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings” (or whatever the Vista equivalent is) when you pull up the Wireless Network Connection Properties box in Vista.

Make sure your laptop connects easily to other WiFi networks. If it does not, make sure you’ve set it to obtain IP and DNS addresses automatically.

Hope this helps.