Confessions of a G33k

Netgear MA111 Wireless USB adapter

Last weekend I purchased a Netgear Wireless MA111 USB adapter for my daughter's computer. To tell you the truth, I was very surprised to find a wireless USB adapter in the store and I just couldn't resist it, since I could think of more than a few uses for it. Also, I'm lazy, and I didn't feel like opening up her box to install a traditional network card. The only drawback to the device is that it only transmits up to 11mbps, but for my daughter's usage, this is more than useful.

So anyway, I went to install the thing on a Windows XP Home installation that hadn't been updated for a few months. Here's a word of caution, don't do that, since I ran into a heap of trouble last weekend. And by heap of trouble, I mean a wasted, frustrated Sunday afternoon in which I was ready to chuck the thing in the trash. I'd give you the horrid details, but all that really happened was that it appeared the adapter was working and that the router couldn't see the USB adapter while it could see my PowerBook. Just to complicate things, my router was configured with a MAC based access control list and WEP, so I had to figure out if it was merely my router that was causing the trouble (it wasn't).

Yes, there were problems with the older Netgear drivers and Windows XP, but they have been fixed and I can confirm that.

So what I learned is that in a perfect world, you need to do the following...

1)Go to Windows Update and make sure your OS is updated to the latest and greatest.

2)Find the updated MA111 2.0 drivers from the Netgear website. Download the driver and install the adapter.

[Steps 1 & 2 could be reversed if you're installing the adapter on a machine that just can't get on a network, but your life will be much, much harder.]

3)Go back to Windows Update and grab the updated (I think it's dated September 2003) MA111 driver and the Windows XP WPA Wireless patch.

After doing all of this, my adapter worked. In addition, I disabled WEP and am using an access control list on the router. I also uninstalled the Configuration Utility that was installed by Netgear and I manage the device through the Windows XP Network Connections window.