Authentication problems 1

[dentarthurdent]

I have 2 laptops that I'm trying to get to talk to each other via wireless networking. One is a compaq tablet PC with built in wireless lan and the other is a sony vaio with an Orinoco wireless card. When I set up a preferred network with the SSID 'Peer to Peer' on both machines with no encryption/authentication they communicate fine. However I think this is probably a naive way to leave things. When I tick the box on each machine for 'Enable WEP' they lose connectivity. This is probably a silly question but why is this ? All I really want to do is secure the comms betwen these 2 PC's.

Will.

 

[bcastner]

I am assuming this is XP on both sides. I think the difficult comes from specifying an identical WEP key on both machines.

This is far from standardized between hardware manufacturers. Remember too that the WEP key is case sensitive.

Do not attempt to force Windows to use a higher WEP key (bits) value than the adapter can handle. This article discusses setting the WEP key:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/bowman/02april08.asp

Look at the WEP setting section on both machines. You want to set the number of bits to the lowest shown on both machines as the default by XP. If the lowest is 40 bits, enter the key, and on the machine showing a high default bit setting, lower it to match the 40 of the other machine and enter in the same case sensitive key.

 

[dentarthurdent]

Thanks bcastner, the microsoft article had the config info I needed.

Cheers,

Will.