Frustrating... It doesn't begin to describe dealing with any type of WiFi configuration in Windows XP. I've been lucky, I've primarily had to use only Mac OS X machines on my wireless network. Setting up my GF's XP machine for the first time I couldn't get it to work, what with all the other crap work had installed on it for our corporate network. But wouldn't you know it, it just started working one day.

We're away from home for a few days and both have our notebooks with us. Her's, an IBM T41 and mine an Apple PB15". Last time I used her machine I dumped a bunch of images on it that I'd now like to move to my machine. I could wait until I get home, sure, but that would be too simple.

My thoughts are that I should be able to set up an ad-hoc wireless network. On the Mac, simple enough. I can easily join any network it sees or specify a name if it doesn't display it right away. I can also easily host a network simply by creating a name and deciding whether or not to use WEP/etc. So that part's done.

Now on the XP machine I can see the network name listed in wireless properties but I can't seem to actually connect. The wireless network icon continues to report that there's no active connection. And on the Mac no network activity is shown, leading me to believe the Windows machine isn't even trying to connect.

Can anyone offer some ideas?

I was also trying to do the reverse, host the network on the Windows machine. But I couldn't figure that out at all. Creating a new ad-hoc wireless connection didn't seem to do anything.

Thanks for any info.
Bruno

As I remember, XP won't automatically attach to "open" wireless networks. I'm not sure if that means ad-hoc, unencrypted, either, or both. But it might be your problem. Open your "Wireless Network Connection Status" panel, click Properties, select the "Wireless Networks" tab and play around in there. I remember having to do this on an unencrypted WiFi network I had.

My experience has been that if you connect to an unsecured (not encripted) network windows tells you to check a box saying you understand that it is an unsecure network. The dumb part is that it still connects to the network regardless of if you check the box or not.

Someone in our office just moved into a townhouse community. Her Gateway laptop (with built-in wireless) automatically connected to an unsecured AP and promptly got a virus! She had to rebuild her system from the restore cd.

Wireless in the wrong hands...

and disable XP's crazy "wireless on by default!!!" setting.

Why anyone would do that but have the firewall off is beyond me. Blimming Microsoft!