Vista can’t see my wireless network
April 16, 2008 by Brett
My dad just got a brand new D-Link DIR-625 802.11n router. I’ve had really good luck w/ D-Link products at home, and he got a great deal on it.
We got it setup and connected his XP desktop & wireless laptop in no time. The laptop is 802.11g, so we haven’t had a chance to test out the “n” capabilities yet. I’m going to connect my iMac just to try it out.
Anyway, I then attempted to connect my Dell Latitude D820 with Vista Ultimate to the wireless network. I thought this should be easy, if not easier, than the XP laptop. Boy was I wrong. I’m still not sure where the problem is – Vista, the wireless adapter, or both but I simply could not get the laptop to see the wireless network.
Here’s the setup:
I have the network named, it’s in mixed 802.11n, g and b mode. “Auto Channel Scan” is enabled, so it’s automatically picking the wireless channel. Transmission Rate is set to “Best (automatic)” and Visibility Status is Invisible (hidden SSID). Security Mode: WPA-Personal, WPA Mode: Auto (WPA or WPA2), Cipher Type: TKIP and AES. Finally there’s a 63 character Pre-Shared Key that I generated from Steve Gibson’s password site.
No matter what security & encryption settings I chose, Vista simply would not see the network. Finally I set all of the above settings, except I made the network Visible so it would broadcast the SSID.
(Insert choirs of angels singing here)
Found it! Vista connected in a second as soon as I started broadcasting the SSID. So why in the world could it not connect to the network with a hidden SSID? I haven’t done any research yet, but if you know of something let me know.
Microsoft has taken the stance that broadcasting the SSID is less of a security risk than NOT broadcasting the SSID.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726942.aspx
So, in Vista, it appears they’ve tried to get users and IT departments to get away from NOT broadcasting. I believe the issue you were seeing could be due to the fact that the setting to allow connections to non-broadcast networks isn’t in the wireless setup wizard. After creating the wireless profile you then have to go back into and edit the properties to allow it to connect even if not broadcasting.
Read more here:
http://www.jhensley.org/blog/2008/67/vista-wireless-configuration/
Thanks for the tip. I saw that setting and didn’t even put 2 and 2 together. I manually configured the wireless profile and didn’t use the wizard. In fact I saw the article you referenced but didn’t read far enough, apparently. The third paragraph says “users need to know the SSID and create a preferred wireless network with the SSID of the non-broadcast network. After the preferred wireless network has been created with the correct SSID, the Wireless Auto Configuration facility in Windows will be able to connect to it.” This was the same setup as XP, and I foolishly expected the same results w/ Vista. Silly me.
I guess I can see Microsoft’s point - if you don’t broadcast, people will be able to see that network that you’re not broadcasting and that will tell them that it’s an “important” hidden network. But for 99% of home users I think that’s a moot point.
Thanks again for the heads up.
I find this somewhat annoying as well, or I’m sure I will when I have to deal with it when Vista is more popular. At Lakeview we have two SSIDs, one for our public network and the other for our private network. I leave the public network broadcasting and turn that off on the private network, so casual users will not get confused about which to connect to (yes, the naming should be a giveaway–but have you seen any users lately?
as only one usually shows up. I’ve used my Lenovo 3000 V100’s Access Connections software to configure my wireless and I don’t think I had to enable that setting to connect, but it’s possible I did and don’t remember. Either way, setting up other staff (who for the most part aren’t on Vista yet!) on the internal wireless will require one more step with this policy! Or maybe I’ll just push the config down with Group Policies 