cannot automatically connect to wireless network

[careless_hxuk]

Hi all

At school we have some laptop PCs which are used in the classrooms and connect to the school network via a wireless connection. Recently, some of them have begun to fail detecting the preferred network, requiring that the the list of wireless networks be refreshed in the windows control panel ('Refresh network list'). Once this is done, the laptop connects to the wireless network automatically and remains connected once logged off, allowing another user to log on.

The problem here is that these laptops do not allow logging on as a local user - all users must log on to the domain, therefore it is necessary to plug each laptop into a physical connection, log on and refresh the wireless network list and then log off, allowing another user to log on. This is obviously completely rubbish, and needs to be sorted.

Anyone ever encountered similar problems? Is there an easy/obvious solution to this?

[joe43wv]

Yes I've seen this problem before myself at where I work. We had the same issue and what it came down to being was the wireless NIC software. What we did was we had the software that came with the card do our wireless connecting for us rather than letting windows do it. Once we disabled the 3rd party software and had windows do all the work we never had any other issues. Try having Windows do all the work if not already and let me know the results.

[careless_hxuk]

I upgraded the wireless card drivers on the affected machines, which seemed to correct the problem, although I suspect it may have been caused by some other factor and this is a fluke. For the record, Windows XP was set to manage the wireless connections - there was no other software installed.

So basically I don't think it's fixed, but it's not exhibiting any problems so there's not much else I can do. I'll post back with any further developments.

Edited May 9, 2008 by careless_hxuk