Prelogon connect to wireless network?

[nic-clark]

Hi,

 

We've got a HP 6735b laptop with a broadcom wireless card in. I want this to connect to the network at logon so users can login wirelessly.

 

I've installed the broadcom wireless utility to help do this, but I can't find the option to do so, there is a bit in the help that talks about an admin utility to do something like this, and to use --enable when you install the utility. I've never done this before and don't understand!

 

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm not tied to the broadcom utility, so if there are other ways to do it, I'm interested too!

 

Any help appreciated!

 

Cheers,

 

Nic

[Michael]

So long as DHCP is enabled (which on Windows it is by default), then the laptop should get allocated an IP and allow users to logon. Personally I use XP's built in Wireless Zero Configuration and it works just fine. If you do experience problems, upgrading the wireless driver can help

[Jose]

you need to use a GPO to force the computer to "wait for network"

this forces the computer to start the network connections before showing the login screen

[Newton]

Found that using Intels Pre logon connect stopped the computer policys from applying, Uninstall it now when ever I see it, dont have problems with users (new or existing) loggin in.

[chilbs]

have a look at this thread

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/networks/26938-wait-wireless-connect.html

 

Chilbs

[Jose]

That would work,

 

but it would be best practise to just change the GPO to wait for network

 

open up gpedit.msc

 

computer configuration/administrative templates/system/logon

change the " always wait for the network at computer startup and logon"

 

why anyone would want to fiddle around with reg frag files when its easier to do this with GPOs is beyond me.

[chilbs]

The point is that computer settings in GPO apply before logon and if the network has not connected the GPO will not apply so therefore you need to do the registry edit to get the network to connect to apply the GPO. Unless you want to hardwire the laptops everytime you make a computer GPO change.

 

Chilbs

[kmount]

The point is that computer settings in GPO apply before logon and if the network has not connected the GPO will not apply so therefore you need to do the registry edit to get the network to connect to apply the GPO. Unless you want to hardwire the laptops everytime you make a computer GPO change.

 

Chilbs

 

If you can afford an extra reboot the GPO will get through eventually. We have plenty of wireless clients which never hardwire in but get GPO changes, just takes an extra reboot once they've been logged in.

[chilbs]

The GPO tells Windows to wait for the network but has a timeout associated with it. The Reg fragment would still be needed if the laptop takes longer than the timeout to connect to the network.

 

This does not apply to all setups some work fine out of the box.

 

Chilbs

[kmount]

We just use the "Wait" and we don't need to do anything else so I guess we're lucky but it is noticeable that it takes a reboot again once logged on for policy changes. Fortunately, not a huge deal for us now it's thoroughly embedded.