Microsoft wireless and WEP keys

[colbertm]

I have a Toshiba Portege 3500 tablet pcs with integrated wireless 802.11b. I plan to deploy 36 Cisco 1200 802.11b WAPs company wide. I want to use (4) 128 bit WEP keys. Things are working no problem when I connect a Cisco card with 4 keys to the WAP with the same 4 keys. The Toshiba integrated uses the Microsoft wireless implementation instead of having it's own driver and utilities for configuring WEP keys. When I add one WEP key to the Toshiba to a WAP with the same key everything works fine. I am having trouble when I try to jump to 4 WEP keys.

Does the Microsoft implementation of wireless and WEP support 4 keys? I've tried using the Key index to advance to the next key. Anyone have docs or suggestions on how to set up 4 WEP keys in MS wireless?

Thanks,
Mike

[aeallison]

After extensive searches on your problem I have come to my own conclusion... dump the MS wireless adaptor and stick with Cisco equipment for your network. Cisco likes to be married to Cisco. I have found many articles concerning how BAD the MS 802.11b wireless products are.

Just my 2 cents. I hope you can find someone here who can help you on this. I have used the Cisco equipment in the past and found it to work very well. I did not find any reference two your question on the WEP keys.

[ih8tspam]

Do you have the latest patches for Windows XP and the latest drivers for the wireless card? You may want to also check out these articles from Microsoft. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=815485 and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...n/wifisoho.asp

[aeallison]

colbertm ... I just finished reading the links that ih8tspam supplied and it looks to me like the MS client end only supports 1 key. Although you have probably figured this out by now.

[ih8tspam]

What wireless chipset does the Portege use? Centrino? If so, it can be configured through the Intel Proset Software.

[colbertm]

Thanks for the help and pointing me to the Technet article. I agree, I'm not impresses with MS wireless. I solved the problem. I applied the XP wireless update KB826942, dumped the Toshiba drivers an utils, downloaded new drivers and client utils directly from Agere, disabled Zero Configuration and I was "In like Flynn".

Thanks for your replies,
Mike

[aeallison]

WELCOME to AO


Thats why we are here, I am glad to hear you got it solved.