Now, maybe this is just Windows itself in all its glory, but I can't seem to find anyone who has similar frustrations.
Laptop is Toshiba Satellite A105-S2001 with the above mentioned wifi card built in.
At work we have a very dense wireless environment, not only because of wireless development in our office, but adjacent offices as well. I've counted up to 28 SSIDs with a tool like NetStumber.
Few problems:
#1 Windows Wireless Utility often will show only 3 or 4 SSIDs, never mind refreshing the list, it doesn't help. If I repair the connection then usually it's OK.
#2 Even worse, the card will often refuse to connect to a router that is about 5 feet away showing full signal strength - it winds up connected to some other one instead. I have manually "disconnected" from the offending SSID, following Windows' advice that it will not make a connection to this SSID automatically in the future - but it does anyway. Do the security settings make any difference? The one I was trying unsuccessfully to connect to was open.
# 3 I also have the Ekahau wireless utility installed which I use on occasion - seems to be more reliable, thus pointing at Windows itself as the culprit. I am not aware that #2 is a common problem with Win XP wireless. Is it?
#4 Even in the Ekahau utilty there does not seem to be a way to make the connection "stay" on any given SSID for the purpose of doing some range tests. What's a person to do?
#5 Certainly this is Windows - the wireless networks SSID list you get from "View Availalble Wireless Networks" shows I am connected to one SSID, but the tooltip that floats up from the task tray icon shows a different one. I presume the task tray one auto-refreshes but the other one does not, because if I refresh it manually then they do agree.
Thanks for any insight.
Larry