Wireless and XP laptops = tears

[chrbb]

Yes wireless and XP laptops bring me close to tears everyday!

 

We currently have bog standard domestic access points but next term are having managed wireless installed, will my XP laptops that hate some access points but love the others at the far end of school work reliably with managed wireless? Or should I apply for that job at B and Q now?

[sted]

how long is a piece of string?

 

if the wireless card inside is not awful and the drivers arnt terrible their is a fair chance they will be fine but there are some poor cards/drivers out there

[tech_guy]

Yes, tell us about it! We had a miserable time this summer with our old DLINK Access Points and laptops when we changed the encryption settings. All replaced now with new DLINK Access Points and everything works, thankfully!

[chrbb]

Well the laptop that didn't want to know it's closest access point yesterday afternoon, connected itself like a dream this morning. Then lost it after lunch and had inexplicably changed it's settings from tkip to aes, changed it back to tkip, connected again.

[witch]

I have managed wireless in both schools and I don't generally have any issues with XP laptops. I even have a couple of Dell D505s still going and they connect fine.

Just update the wireless drivers if possible and hopefully all will be well

[SYNACK]

XP is junk with wireless, a decent managed system like Ruckus can help by withholding bad choices from clients that are behaving stupidly though which is helpful. As above update the drivers to the latest versions and in advanced settings wind up the aggressiveness of the ones that 'stick' to access points.

 

This should help a bit and make it more manageable.

[Little-Miss]

As soon as we stopped using bog standard wireless and got managed Ruckus, the majority of my issues went away. So it may well be the way you need to go.

[Haptic]

changed it's settings from tkip to aes, changed it back to tkip, connected again.

 

One thing to be aware of is when you do implement a managed solution don't use TKIP as your encryption method- it will automatically limit connection to 25 clients per AP.

 

A lot does depend on what managed solution you are going for, but generally ensure that you have the latest drivers for your wireless card loaded prior to deployment and check that power saving settings on devices aren't effecting networking components.

 

Mark

[psydii]

I never had any problems with XP and managed wireless.... except for really really bad drivers, but that was a long while ago and subsequently the XP hardware/software platform has completely matured.

 

That said I'm assuming you're running sp3 with all security and recommended updates, with latest bios and drivers... if that is the case and you are still having problems, there are several updates that are not delivered by WU that may improved XP wireless networking:

 

You encounter several problems on a Windows XP SP3-based computer when the EAP-TLS machine authentication fails during system startup

A Windows XP Service Pack 3-based client computer cannot use the IEEE 802.1x authentication when you use PEAP with PEAP-MSCHAPv2 in a domain

A computer that is running Windows XP SP3 cannot authenticate a wireless router that uses the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) when the router is configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

The dialog box to input your PIN code does not appear when you use smart card authentication to log on to a computer that is running Windows XP

Post-installation behavior on client computers after you install the DNS update

"0x000000D1" Stop error message when you try to refresh a webpage in Internet Explorer on a computer that is running Windows XP SP3

When you run the "Ipconfig /displaydns" command in Windows XP, the results are incomplete

 

If I were having XP client problems, I'd try installing the lot onto several test machines (perhaps even an entire trolley) and see whether there was any general improvement.

Edited December 6, 2012 by psydii
clarity and spag

[Michael]

I've not really had any problems with XP and wireless. Of course you need to make sure you're running at least XP SP2 to support WPA2 AES, but you should be running XP SP3 at the very least these days.

 

As above I agree, avoid dual TKIP/AES setups and just stick with AES. It's secure whereas TKIP isn't. I also believe TKIP will be dropped with future wireless technologies anyhow.

 

I also agree download the latest drivers from the manufacturers website. Relying on Windows Update doesn't always give the best/latest driver. They're always 2 or 3 versions behind.

[mac_shinobi]

Beat me to it , ive not had issues with XP and wireless but using windows to manage the wireless ( so wireless zero config ) instead of the manufacturer utils ie intel wireless or access connections or whatever. As mentioned above already SP 2 or 3 at the very least and latest drivers, although not sure what make / model / if you have the latest firmware on the AP's etc ??