IT Professionals

Will The Real Wireless Config Tool Please Stand Up?

Posted by on Oct 2, 2006 | 3 Comments

I can adapt to most any wireless LAN client utility pretty easily. Lord knows I’ve seen my share. In the Windows 98/Me and Windows 2000 days, there really wasn’t a standard wireless configuration tool built into the OS. You used the configuration tool that came with your wireless adapter. Then Windows XP came along, and Microsoft finally put some Wi-Fi “awareness” into the OS. This got markedly improved with XP SP2. And from what I’ve seen on Vista, Microsoft has continued to build in functionality and increase ease of use.

So why is it, in this day and age, that OEMs and/or wireless chipset makers insist on putting their own wireless configuration utilities on Windows laptops? IBM/Lenovo does it. Dell does it. I’ve seen multiple brands that use Intel wireless chipsets that have the Intel Pro Wireless interface. Why does it bug me so much? I’ll tell you why – consistency. As somebody who supports end users of all stripes, it’s just nice for an end user not to have to re-learn how to do Wi-Fi because they got a new laptop. Yes, some of these interfaces have some “oh-ah” graphics and other parlor tricks, but all people want to do with their 802.11 wireless is connect and work… not learn the subtleties of a new interface.

Granted, in some cases, you can disable the “other” wireless interface and force Windows XP to be the wireless config tool of choice. But it shouldn’t have to come to that. What’s so wrong with XP SP2′s wireless LAN UI? Why not simplify and standardize? To me, they are selling more “sizzle” than steak.

  • Mark Krzewina

    How do you disable the annoying desktop alert that keeps popping up from the Intel Pro Wirless notifying you that a wireless connection is available?
    Thanks, Mark

  • http://www.askwilliestylez.com Will Flint

    My big problem with the whole thing, is that of all the WLAN clients, the Zero Config client from XP SP2 is actually BETTER!!! That sucks. M$ should not be (after 10 years) the leader when it comes to a utility like a WLAN client. The reason I say its better, some may ask? Well, for me, a network administrator, is always on availibility. The Zero Config runs as a service, therefore even with my enterprise authentication scheme (certificate based WPA2), Zero Config allows my laptops to connect to the WiFi PRIOR to me logging in. That’s important because, like most NetAdmins, I need to perform maintenance and patch updates when users overnight or without the users being logged in. I have yet to find any other WLAN client that provides that. Plus, it seems to be the one of the only clients that can actually connect to an access point using WPA2. So far I have only found Intel’s current build of Pro Wireless that does this as well, and I am sure Cisco’s Aironet client does it since they implemented the WPA2 standard (or at least their own version of it). Anyway, I say down with these crappy proprietary WLAN clients, until they can actually do something usefull for a change. Like get me connected!!!

  • Nigel Stoner

    The main reason I do not use windows built in Zero config is a problem called ‘Pre-logon Authentication’. Our network uses a logon script that maps home drives for users, sets up outlook profiles etc. If a user isn’t connected to the network while this is happening the laptop simply thinks it’s at home and logs on locally. Dell and Intel Proset provide the software that will get an IP before sending the users logon details, thus everything works better (not perfect, but better). Unfortunately some other card vendors are not as good as Intel, Broadcom for example have not released any new drivers with this capability for a while (2005-6 I think). In XP you can tick a box to make a persistant link, but there is no clear setting for this and certainly no indication of your connection to wireless before you log on.

    As for having one software ‘ring’ to rule them all, yes, it should be built into XP, but because of the different hardware vendors thats not possible yet. A call for tighter standards in Windows hardware.