WPA Encryption and Netgear Wireless Software
 

So I set up a wireles network to use WPA encryption, because of all the bad things I've heard about WEP encryption. The problem is that my desktop has a Netgear Wireless-G Card, and the software that shipped with it can only use WEP encryption, at least as far as I can tell.

Any way I can use this computer on my wireless network?

Oh yeah, running windows XP Pro.

Maybe I'm hitting the obvious, but did you check for firmware updates from the Netgear site yet?

WPA needs a software component (known as the supplicant) to handle the rolling key between the hardware and your infrastructure (access point). XP includes one, but that means using XP's wireless config to get it. The card's driver can provide one but they're complex animals so most NIC companies just license them from someone else. Cost has been roughly the same as for the hardware, which means they usually save money by only supporting WPA on XP since it already has the feature.

Netgear supplies drivers with supplicants for _some_ cards. It's hit & miss. Check their <a href="http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp">support site</a> for the exact version of your card. If their release notes are obtuse you might have better luck searching their knowledgebase for "modelnumber wpa".

I've found XP's wireless config to be user-hostile, but almost universally workable. It doesn't really like letting you tweak and fine-tune, and you can't really get at its guts, but for 99% of APs I've used it with, it's worked fine on its own.

The corollary, of course, is that you're completely and utterly boned 1% of the time... :rolleyes:

If you can use the wireless config built into XP, it's probably the simplest thing. There's a checkbox in your wireless config program that's labeled something like "Use this software to manage wireless connections". Turning that off should activate XP's built in mojo.

Updating the firmware did it. I had just updated a little while ago so I didn't think it would matter, but lo and behold.

Thanks guys.

A note to anyone who has this problem in the future, Netgear's softwear hides WPA encryption behind the advanced button, so you might not notice it on the first try.