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The XP Wireless Client

The main way to access the XP wireless client is through the icons in the system tray (next to the clock on the bottom right of the screen). But this system tray icon can also be used to show the current state of the wireless connection.

The icons shown below are the system tray icons for the XP wireless client. The left icon shows that it is not connected to a Wireless network and is marked with a red cross. The center icon shows the client has connected to a wireless network. You can tell this as the red cross is now not shown. You can see by the fact that the screen colour is dark blue and the wavy lines are grey that the wireless network card is not currently transmitting or receiving data. The right icon indicates that the computer is connected to a wireless network and the screen being a light blue colour indicates that the wireless card is currently transmitting or receiving data.

If you right click on one of the system tray icons shown above and click on View Available Wireless Networks the wireless networks list window will open.

As you can see the example shown is connected to the wireless network SharpNet which it says is encrypted using WPA encryption. You can also see that where this network was set up there are other wireless networks, some which are encrypted but most are not.

You would also be able to tell which network you are connected to when you first connect to it as you will see the following balloon popup on screen:-

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Connecting To A Wireless Network

The first time you connect to your wireless network you will have to let the computer know what network you want to connect to and what the encryption key for the network is. There are a couple of ways to connect to a wireless network, the first is to just click on the network you want to connect to from the wireless networks list, click on the Connect button at the bottom of the window and enter the encryption key if asked.

Once the key has been entered and you choose to connect you will see the next window which indicates that XP is checking to see if the key is correct for the network you are trying to join.

After the encryption key you entered has been checked you will either see the wireless networks list window shown at the beginning of the page indicating that you are connected to the wireless network or you will be advised that you could not connect to the wireless network. In this situation you should check your key is correct and the wireless network is still available.

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Manually Setting Up A Connection

The other method of connecting to your wireless network is to manually set your connection up. You can do this by clicking on the Change advanced settings link shown in the wireless networks list side pane. You can also open the window through Network Connections in Control Panel. This will open the network card properties wireless networks tab, which is shown below.

If you click on the Add button you will open the wireless network properties window which is shown below. In this window you will need to enter the SSID of the wireless network you are trying to join. You will need to get this information from either the router documents / manufacturer or your Internet Service Provider if they provided the wireless router.

No Authentication / Open Network

In the screen shot below you can see that the Network Authentication is set to Open and Data Encryption is set to Disabled. This is basically no encryption and it will only connect to the wireless network if the network itself is set up for no encryption. This is often the case if connecting to a public hotspot.

It is best not to use this on a home network as the data being transmitted can openly be read by anybody within range of the wireless network. Also if you are using the wireless network to share an Internet connection anybody in range will be able to use your network. If they were to be doing anything illegal this would be traced to YOU.

WEP Encryption

To set up your connection to use WEP encryption you would need to change the Network Authentication to Shared and the Data Encryption to WEP. You would then need to enter the correct WEP key into the Network key and Confirm network key boxes.

If you are joining an infrastructure network, for example setting up a connection from your computer to your Internet modem / router, the key must be the same as what is set at the access point to be able to connect.

WPA Encryption

To set up your connection to use WPA encryption you would need to change the Network Authentication to WPA-PSK and the Data Encryption to either TKIP or AES. You would then need to enter the correct WPA key into the Network key and Confirm network key boxes.

The difference between TKIP and AES encryption is really not too important for the average user to understand. The important thing to know is that if you are joining an infrastructure network and the Wireless router is set to use WPA - TKIP then the computer will need to be set up to use TKIP, if the Wireless router is set to use WPA - AES then, again, the computer will need to be set up to use AES. If you are not sure what type of encryption the router is using check the documentation for the router or the routers web admin pages.

If you are joining an infrastructure network the key and the encryption type must be set the same as what is set at the access point to be able to connect.

WPA 2 Encryption

Windows XP does not natively support WPA 2. However WPA 2 is the best encryption currently in use on home equipment today so if your router supports it you should set your connection up to use WPA 2.

To get Windows XP to be able to use WPA 2 you have to install a patch from Microsoft. To get this patch click here. In a few weeks time now Windows XP SP3 is going to be release to the general public. This service pack also contains the patch to enable WPA2 on Windows XP.

The same thing applies to WPA 2 as it did with WPA in that there are two encryption methods which can be used; TKIP and AES. The same rules apply here as those that applied for WPA.

If you are joining an infrastructure network the key must be the same as what is set at the access point to be able to connect.

Setting up an ad-hoc network

If you were setting up an ad-hoc connection, i.e. there is no wireless access point and you want to connect computers together wirelessly, you would need to tick the box 'This is a computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) network', shown below.

In this situation all computers being connected together need to be set in this way, the encryption methods and keys all need to be the same and the SSID all need to be set the same on each machine.

Once the connection has been manually set up the connection will be displayed in the wireless networks tab as shown below.

If the computer is not yet connected to the wireless network it will look as it is shown but if the computer is already connected the icon will look as it is shown in the circle.

These are the basics behind the XP wireless client. At the end of the day all clients do the same thing so although they may look different and name certain things differently if you understand what is being asked by one client then you will be able to work out what information the other client program is asking.

Troubleshooting XP Wireless Connection

Is There A Wireless Network?

First you need to ensure that there is a wireless network, just because you have a wireless router who's to say it is working? Before you even start thinking about the settings on your computer you need to make sure that the wireless network you are trying to connect to is transmitting.

To do this you can either use a different computer in the same location to try to connect to the wireless network or try your computer with a different wireless access point or try it at a known working wireless hotspot, for example in a train station, hotel or Internet cafe.

If other computers can connect to your wireless network then the problem will be with your machine. If you get to a public hotspot but can not connect to it, this would also suggest an issue with your machine.

Location

The location is about where the wireless access point is in relation to the computer. Depending on the wireless standard being used the wireless signal will only travel a certain distance. To find out more about the coverage each type of standard can manage see this page.

If your wireless router needs to be a long way from where your computer is located you should consider getting one of the newer types of wireless devices, for example 802.11n, which will give you a greater coverage of your wireless signal.

Wireless Network Card Drivers

The next thing to consider are the drivers for your wireless card. As time goes on with software getting updated and as bugs are found in drivers, newer drivers will be released for your wireless card. It is always best practice to download and install the latest drivers for all the hardware in your machine but this is especially true with regard to wireless LAN card drivers. To get the latest version of the drivers for your wireless LAN card you will need to go to the card manufacturers web site and download them.

To find out which driver version your wireless network card is using Open the Start Menu, Right click on My Computer and choose manage from the menu. This will open a computer management window. In the Left hand pane of Computer Management click on the Device Manager option, which will populate the Right hand pane. In this pane you should see a section called Network Adapters, if you double click on this it will give a list of network adapters installed in your machine. Double click your wireless network card and select the drivers tab, this will show your driver version.

I Can Not See Any Wireless Networks

The main problem to look at is not seeing any wireless networks in your wireless network list. This basically means that your computer is not detecting any wireless networks. This will usually give you a Wireless network list shown below.

If this situation happens there are a couple of things to check. Firstly most laptops these days come with a button which allows you to turn off the wireless antenna. This is basically to save power as the wireless antenna can decrease the battery life of some machines by as much as 50%. If you do not see any wireless networks and are using a laptop the first thing to check is whether the machine has the wireless turned on. This is usually indicated by a light on the machine, if you are unsure check the manual or ask the manufacturer.

The next thing to check is whether your wireless network card is installed. To do this follow the procedure given above in the wireless network card driver section to open Device manager. Your wireless network card should be listed under Network adapters and if you double click this it should show as working properly on the General tab. If the card is listed under other devices in control panel or shows anything other than working properly then you have an issue with the driver for the network card. In this situation you need to re-install the wireless network card driver.

If the wireless card is not listed at all in Device manager then the most likely event is that the wireless card is either physically not installed in the machine or it is not working. However, before phoning the computer manufacturer and demanding a repair the first thing that needs to be done is to rule out any software issues that could cause this. The simple fact of the matter is that if a software issue is causing this problem then booking a repair and having a new wireless card installed will not fix the problem.

Even if the card is not listed at all in Device manager this does not necessarily mean that the wireless card has failed. I have seen, more and more lately, that the only way to get a missing card back in to Device manager is to re-install the OS. I would say that there are registry cleaners out there and some troubleshooting advice about what can solve some of these problems but the simple fact of the matter is that sometimes you can spend days chasing a problem that can be fixed in a few hours by a backup and re-install.

Am I Connected Or Am I Associated?

What a lot of people do not understand is that they can seemingly be connected to their wireless access point without actually being connected to their wireless access point. This is because in actual fact they have associated with the access point but for some reason the access point is not allowing communication to it.

This situation usually occurs if you connect to the wireless network but the encryption type or key are not correct. In this situation you can be associated with the wireless access point but you are not actually connected to it. This kind of thing can happen if you have manually set up a wireless profile with the incorrect details or if the wireless key or encryption type gets changed at the access point making your saved, previously working profile suddenly have the incorrect information to connect to the wireless network.

There are some tell tale signs as to whether this is the case or not. The first place to look is in the system tray. If you are associated but not connected to the wireless network you will get a system tray icon. This is shown below.

The next thing to check is whether you are receiving data packets. To check this Open Network Connections, right click on your wireless network connection and choose status. This will open your wireless LAN card status window, which is shown below.

As you can see from the lower half of the screen shot the wireless card is sending data packets fine but it has only received a couple. It also has the Exclamation mark sign. This usually happens as the wireless card tries to connect to the wireless access point. What is happening is that the machine is sending out wireless packets fine but the couple it has received is where the wireless access point is asking for the encryption key and when it is not correct the access point is indicating this to the machine. From this point the access point knows the encryption key is not correct so it does not send any more packets out to it.

The other thing that might indicate this problem that the machine will not be receiving an IP address from the DHCP server. If you don't understand these terms you can find out more here. To see an example of this look at the following screen shot which shows the details of the connection. This can be shown by clicking the Support tab of the wireless networking card and choosing details.

You can see from the above screen shot that the IP address is an APIPA address. This is basically because the machine will try to get an IP address from the DHCP server after it has connected to the wireless network. If the machine is not allowed to connect to the wireless network it can not get an IP address.

Anybody which knows about networking will recognize all of the above screen shots as this is also the problem you get if you can not contact a DHCP server to obtain an IP address or if the network card has an IP address set manually which is not in the same range of the wireless network's address. Essentially these two problems are the same. The tell tale sign is the fact you are not receiving any wireless packets.

To count out an encryption issue the easiest thing to do is disable encryption on the wireless access point. This will make the wireless network an open network which needs no encryption key. Obviously you do not want to leave your network open as this means that everybody in range can connect but this process is a good way to discount wireless encryption issues between your machine and the wireless access point.

Wireless connection keeps dropping

When XP was first released the wireless client that came with it was not fantastic. The main issue that people were finding was that the connection would drop every 5-10 minutes and then re-connect. This was because XP's wireless client would keep polling to see if it could find any other network in range to connect to with a stronger wireless signal.

This was caused by a service called the Windows Zero Configuration Service. If you find that this is a problem you are encountering the best way to get around it is to use a different wireless client. Usually you will get a wireless client with the hardware when you buy it. If you use this utility and change the Windows Zero Configuration service from starting automatically to starting manually (type services.msc into the run box in the Start menu to find this) you should find that you do not get this problem any more.

Low signal strength

Having a low signal strength on your wireless connection is a common problem and can be caused by different factors.

The main factor to consider is the distance between your computer and the wireless router. Depending on the type of wireless standard you are using the distance that the wireless signal can travel varies. To find out the distances different standards of wireless will travel see here.

The obstacles between your computer and the router is another factor to consider. You see the wireless signal is being transmitted using radio waves and while there are certain things radio waves can travel through they usually find there way by bouncing off various surfaces. If there are a lot of obstacles between your computer and the wireless access point the distance the wireless signal can travel will fall, sometimes quite dramatically.

The next thing to consider is the building material used in the obstacles between your computer and the wireless access point. Certain types of material may let radio waves travel through them, others will bounce the signal back and some will dissipate the signal completely. In my house I have given up with wireless networking as I get an excellent signal in the room with the router but outside of that room I get no signal and can not connect.

As already stated above you must also consider checking for an updated driver for your wireless card. If the driver which came with your computer is an early release it may have a newer driver which has been rewritten to iron out any reported problems.

Changing the wireless channel is the next step. Basically a wireless network just transmits data using radio waves. Certain things can cause interference on these radio waves and certain cards prefer to work at certain frequencies. Wireless LAN is made of 13 bands of radio frequencies, however only a few combinations of three or four frequencies do not overlap, i.e. you can only have three or four channels in use if you do not want the channels to overlap.

If you think about the amount of your neighbors that might have wireless networks they are also going to be using one of these wireless channels. If you are all using the same channel or channels which are close together then there will be a lot of interference, so if you have a low signal strength try changing the wireless channel on the wireless access point.

I can not set up WPA 2 Encryption

Setting up WPA 2 is as simple as setting up any other type of encryption... as long as you have the Microsoft patch installed on the machine which provides this functionality.

If you go into the set up pages of your wireless LAN card you may find that there is no option in the Network Authentication box for WPA 2. If you find this is the case the most likely cause is that the patch you need is not installed. To download and install the patch you can click here.

If you already have SP3 for Windows XP installed on your machine you will not need this patch as it is included as part of this Service Pack. Once one of these two patches are installed you should be able to choose WPA 2-PSK from the Network Authentication box.