Jo-Anne wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:
I'm using Windows XP, fully updated. For a while I've been unable to
connect my laptop wirelessly to my network (I have a wireless
router). However, it works when plugged in to the router. I recently
discovered that my netbook, which appeared to connect wirelessly, was
actually using someone else's unsecured network. My local ISP
suggested that I unplug the modem, unplug the router, wait 30
seconds, plug in the modem, and then, after the DSL light came on,
plug in the router. I did all that, but the situation remains the
same.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne
So don't you have to be "pro-active", go into the netbook,
find the application that controls which network you connect
to wirelessly, find *your* router, and connect to that ?

How is unplugging the other equipment, going to cause a
"miracle" on the netbook ?

You need to take control. You're supposed to be "steering"
the netbook, not letting it drive :-) If your Wifi network
is secured, it should be taking some extra work on your
part, on the netbook, to get it connected. (I.e. keys
or passwords to enter)

Now, if you've tried to connect to your own wireless
network, using some application on the netbook, then
you should phrase the question that way. Indicate
what tool you would normally use on the netbook to
set up Wifi (like Zeroconf or some proprietary
tool provided with the netbook), and ask a question
about the specifics of that.

The reason you don't want to connect to a stranger's
Wifi network, is they can "sniff" your packets,
extract bank passwords or credit card numbers and
so on. That is also one of the reasons, it isn't wise
to connect to "free" proxy sites you sometimes
see advertised in newsgroups. Such proxy servers
can be the tools of evil minds - bent on stealing
"WOW gold" or the like.

Paul
With your prodding, I tried again to get at least the laptop connected
wirelessly--and I succeeded. (I needed to input some numbers from the
bottom of the router. Why, I don't know, since it had been working
properly til around mid-November.)

However, I still can't connect with the netbook. What's happening at
this point is that although I appear to be connected to my own wireless
network, I'm stuck at "Acquiring network address." I opened Network
Connections, double-clicked on Wireless Network Connection, and the
Status is always the above. Packets are being sent and received, but
I'm not connected. Any idea of what I should try next?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne
You could work through some of the ideas here.

http://www.wirelessforums.org/networ...blem-5153.html

Before reading that, my initial impression, is the DHCP server didn't
have
an address to give. Some DHCP servers have an address range value - I
used
to keep mine set at 4 for example, so my DHCP server in the router,
would
cycle through a fairly small pool of 4 addresses. But it looks like that
error message
is more indicative that it simply isn't getting through all the way.
That's
why the first suggestion is to change the SSID (which will likely screw
up the
other machines), and try to set it up again.

If packets really were getting through, and weren't being rejected, then
it couid be a setting on the router for DHCP that isn't quite right.

Paul

Thank you again, Paul! This is going to require more work, I'm afraid. I
read the ideas on the forum, but I'll have to gear myself up to trying
them. I had no idea wireless connections could get so complicated. I
guess I should start with my router's manual. Time to learn what I'm up
against.

Jo-Anne
They mention a Network Diagnostic tool on this page.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...agnostics.mspx

About 75% down the page, there is a section on wireless.

"its real strength is in wireless networking, an area that
still causes more network problems than any other"

"Network Diagnostic tool"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914440/en-us

There is no guarantee it's going to help, but it might
give you some ideas.

Paul

Thank you again, Paul! I'll check them out this weekend. One question,
though: Is there any way I can start over with the netbook? That is, can I
delete everything related to the router and set things up from scratch?

Jo-Anne



I don't know if I can provide a recipe *guaranteed* to reset
everything.

On the one hand, you can go to Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), and
do an "Uninstall". Then, use the "Add Hardware" control panel,
to add it back in again. If I look in Network Connections,
when I just did that for my new network card, it changed
the connection number from 4 to 5. That implies "something
changed".

But a lot of hardware and their settings, tend to be preserved,
even after uninstalling from "Add/Remove" and reinstalling
again. The installers don't remove everything. And that
can be especially problematic, if some setting is out of
range. (That's a problem with graphics cards.)

If you go into the registry, and delete the "ENUM" key, that
would cause all the hardware to be discovered again. And there
is a good chance, all related settings would be turfed. But
that will also result in you needing to do a lot of cleanup work
afterwards. So that wouldn't be my first choice as a recipe.
I've done that before, as a test, on an older OS, and it
seemed to work, but it's not something I'd recommend in
this case, where you only want to reset one thing.

Are you sure you can't enter the settings, with whatever
Networking setup box you were using ? It should allow you
to change security settings. And use WEP or WPA2 or whatever.

"The Windows XP Wireless Zero Configuration Service"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/l.../bb878124.aspx

Apparently, you can use the proprietary software that
came with the Wifi, or WZC. But they probably both
won't be enabled at the same time. You can use "services"
type commands, to turn WZC on and off. But I don't know
about the proprietary stuff, whether it works the same
way.

Paul