Windows WiFi Client

20 Mar 2005 3:52 PM

Smowk

Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid "built-in"
wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2? I've tried netgear,
and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and none of them seem to be all
that great. Any 3rd party client that saves profiles, WEPs, etc...

Smowk

20 Mar 2005 5:42 PM

Doug Jamal

Is there something "specific" you're looking for in a WiFi client? If so,
what?

20 Mar 2005 6:00 PM

Thomas Krüger

Smowk wrote:

> Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid "built-in"
> wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2? I've tried netgear,
> and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and none of them seem to be all
> that great. Any 3rd party client that saves profiles, WEPs, etc...
>
> Smowk

Intel Proset

Thomas

20 Mar 2005 6:22 PM

Jerry Park

Thomas Krüger wrote:

Show quoteHide quote

>Smowk wrote:
>
>
>
>>Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid "built-in"
>>wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2? I've tried netgear,
>>and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and none of them seem to be all
>>that great. Any 3rd party client that saves profiles, WEPs, etc...
>>
>>Smowk
>>
>>
>
>Intel Proset
>
>Thomas
>
>

Yes. The Intel utilities do all that, but in my system (Dell Inspiron
8200), the services Intel's utility runs don't play well with Windows.
When I log off or shut down, I get the pop up window that (such and
such) service has not stopped and will be stopped in X seconds. I let
Windows manage the device for that reason.

20 Mar 2005 7:31 PM

Jeff Liebermann

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:22:43 -0600, Jerry Park <NoReply@No.Spam>
wrote:

>Yes. The Intel utilities do all that, but in my system (Dell Inspiron
>8200), the services Intel's utility runs don't play well with Windows.
>When I log off or shut down, I get the pop up window that (such and
>such) service has not stopped and will be stopped in X seconds. I let
>Windows manage the device for that reason.

Several releases of Intel Proset are a problem. It will often hog
100% of the CPU cycles for no obvious reason. I've found that I can
simply disable Wireless Zero Config, and rename:
C:\Windows\System32\ZCfgSvc.exe
to something like
C:\Windows\System32\ZCfgSvc.exe.crud
and the system will shutdown normally. I'm not sure exactly what this
program does, but it's apparently the link between Proset and WZC. If
it's running, but WZC isn't, strange things will happen.

Some notes on the topic from others:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1074180478
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_z.htm

--
Jeff Liebermann    je***@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D   http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060    AE6KS 831-336-2558

21 Mar 2005 3:06 AM

dold

Smowk <Smowk***@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid "built-in"
> wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2? I've tried netgear,
> and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and none of them seem to be all
> that great. Any 3rd party client that saves profiles, WEPs, etc...

The free Boingo client manages the connections, and offers stored profiles
with some options like specific hard-coded IP addresses that the WinXP
client doesn't provide.

I normally use the built in WinXP-SP2 client. I invoke the Boingo client
when I need to connect on that one network.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

22 Mar 2005 12:04 AM

Smowk

Show quote Hide quote

d***@XReXXWindo.usenet.us.com wrote in news:d1ldn7$maq$2@blue.rahul.net:

> Smowk <Smowk***@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid
>> "built-in" wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2?
>> I've tried netgear, and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and
>> none of them seem to be all that great. Any 3rd party client that
>> saves profiles, WEPs, etc...
>
> The free Boingo client manages the connections, and offers stored
> profiles with some options like specific hard-coded IP addresses that
> the WinXP client doesn't provide.
>
> I normally use the built in WinXP-SP2 client. I invoke the Boingo
> client when I need to connect on that one network.
>

i've found the winxp client to "work" the best, but i'm comparing that to
netgear and linksys clients so...

maybe i'll just stick to the xp client, i was just wondering if there was
something out there that would "show" you more, such as kb transferred,
kb/sec, etc...

thanks

smowk

22 Mar 2005 6:03 PM

dold

Smowk <Smowk***@yahoo.com> wrote:

> maybe i'll just stick to the xp client, i was just wondering if there was
> something out there that would "show" you more, such as kb transferred,
> kb/sec, etc...

start-run-perfmon.msc
    + Performance Object - Network Interface.
    "Current Bandwidth" is interesting on a 54g connection.
    there are several performance counters.
    + Performance Object - TCP, ICMP, UDP

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

23 Mar 2005 6:23 PM

Jonathan

Smowk wrote:

> Whats the best WiFi client for windows...besides the stupid "built-in"
> wireless network software that comes with winxp sp2? I've tried netgear,
> and linksys, and dlink, and a few others, and none of them seem to be all
> that great. Any 3rd party client that saves profiles, WEPs, etc...
>
> Smowk

What you really want is a connection manager: something that maintains
profiles for different networks.

IBM has a very nice connection manager called IBM Access Connections for
ThinkPads, not sure if it will work with non-IBM gear. It manages
connections just as you ask for, but does wired as well as wireless
network connections. It's been about a year since I used it but it did
seem to be pretty nice, IIRC.

good luck,
Jonathan