Have you installed the update from Microsoft that includes the Zero Configuration Utility?  The purpose of this utility is to lock out and block those AP's from showing themsleves as available.

The reason these are showing up is becasue the SSID Broadcast feature has not been disabled, which poses the question, "Has Yours"?

Great article URL posted below.  If you would like to have some fun with these folks, you could use the net send command from a command prompt and advise them that their wireless access is wide open and to please apply some security measure to close it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1277020,00.asp

 

I think I've done the most basic stuff to secure my network...

• 128bit WEP and changed the default password
• Disabled SSID broadcast
• Using MAC Filter

I don't see there's firmware to upgrade my AP to support WPA (please correct me if I were wrong, and I'd love to get WPA!)

Back to the connectivity issue... I've downloaded all updates from windowsupdate.microsoft.com so I assume I've already got it? I've also checked that the Zero Config service is on, however the problem's still there...

The update is from Knowledge Base Article 815485 and is not part of the regular Windows Update package (don't ask me why but I am going to bring this up at the MVP Conference in Seattle next month).

You should see this mentioned in the PC Magazine article.

I submitted a question at Linksys's website regarding WAP for my AP this morning and I was plesantly surprised that they responded to me within an hour!  The tech support guy verified my finding that BEFW11S4 v.2 still doesn't support WAP but they're currently working on the firmware, although there's no
definite time and date for the release.

I also emailed Proxim regarding WAP on Orinoco Gold PC Card but I haven't heard from them yet.

Knowledge Base Article 815485 is the patch for WAP on XP. Do you know which one is for updating Zero Configuration Utility, jmwills? I searched in microsoft.com and there're so many patches returned as I queried "XP Zero Configuration Utility"!

Having read other posts in this forum, it's quite often that people suggest disabling 802.1x Authentication on wireless network property. How does it help the connectivity? Even "expert" from Microsoft highlighted the word "not" regarding this property. Why?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/bowman/02december16.asp

Thanks!

Well... if there're some of you out there who've been reading this thread and would like to know if Orinoco Gold PC Card supports WAP, the answer is "no". Also Proxim has outsourced their customer support to India (to a firm called vcustomer, you can find them at vcustomer.com) and I doubt if they have any knowledge what's going on in Proxim...

Putting the Orinoco aside, does anyone know how to answer my questions (Channel selection, 802.1x authentication, connectivity issue and the patch that fixes it) that I posted earlier in this thread? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

Someone earlier posted a link to a driver for the Orinoco Gold that gave WPA - they had a TM1150 (rebranded OG) and wanted WPA support.

I'd posted a note about drivers from Agere that support WPA a few days ago. It's in the Precision/Network board.

As far as I can tell, the "Hermes" chipset is what the Orinoco/TM1150 cards use. But I haven't tried those drivers, and nobody's posted into the thread since my note.

Jim

Message Edited by jimw on 03-15-2004 04:51 PM

There is a service that runs in the background that checks for wireless networks every 3 minutes on Win Xp.  Once you are connected to your network you can stop that service and then you should NOT lose connection.  If you got o Control panel and then adminstrative tools.  Look for services.  In services you will see a service running called windows zero configuration utility or something to that nature.  If you stop this service, it will not look every 3 minutes for a new network..

Hope this helps.