Installation

The great thing about networking is the cross-platform compatibility. Several boxes with different OS's can communicate with each other regardless of their specs or contents. For the test, I set up the wireless AP in my living room with a connection to a D-Link switch in port 3 with 2 other computers connected in ports 1 and 2. A DSL modem is connected to the uplink port on the switch. In the directions, it says to make sure that the AP and adapters are a good few feet away from components that might cause interference such as a computer or a monitor. After installing the Access Point, I powered it up and went to install the wireless adapter in my sister's computer in her room about 125 feet away. There are about 3 walls to get through to get to her room so this is a good testing environment. The 3 computers all use different versions of windows. There was one with Windows 2000, one with Whistler Beta, and the other with good old Windows 98 (sister's PC). Installing the Adapter was a snap but I made a mistake. In the directions, it said to install the software before plugging in the hardware but I did it the other way around (guess that's what instructions are for). Surprisingly, the adapter fired right up and worked anyway. Just to avoid any mistakes on my part, I uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and software the correct way.

Once the installations were complete. I restarted the computer and fired up Internet Explorer to check the network connection. The familiar "The Web page you requested is not available offline. To view this page, click Connect." Popped up. I went ahead and clicked Connect and Explorer loaded my start page just fine. There are some unique properties pages that you might need to look at if there are multiple computers on the wireless net. This means setting the operating mode, ESSID, Channel, and Authentication type to be identical to every other computer on the wireless network. In my experience with multiple computers on the net, I didn't have to touch these settings. Plug and play all the way I might say. The software that is installed along with the Adapter is just basically a monitor/configuration utility. It tells you most importantly, the signal strength and allows you change settings such as connection speed and encryption protocols.

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