dear wlan gurus, is there a easy way to check (with a tool, or a registry key or...) to check if a builtin wlan-adapter is capable for wpa ? we should check about 800 notebooks (different brands) if they support wpa. a tool would be very handy.
thanx alot tim
Until a guru shows up, I'll throw something in:
Are they B or G? Most B devices seem to fall on the side of not supporting WPA. Most G devices do. That's a good starting point. A few B devices do have updated drivers that handle WPA, but you may have to root around for it.
1) If your notebooks are all the same, then researching the newest driver for the installed adapter should tell you if they support wpa. Install the latest driver and test.2) If you have a variety of laptops, you could simply group them and do #1 and/or test a representative of each group. Put up an AP on WPA with a simple key in the same room and try to connect using the client adapter in question.
Easy enough. I can't believe that there would be software that investigates the driver on each laptop. It's too easy to read the spec sheet or test it directly.
Steve
tim braun hath wroth:
Sure, lots of ways. However, I'm lazy and really don't want to describe methods for every version of Windoze, Mac's, or Linux. Is there a common operating system? Perhaps you're lucky and they're mostly a common brand or model? I assume you don't want to tweak the laptop configuration as just trying it with a WPA enabled access point would be a foolproof test. Just carry around a "travel router" configured to WPA with a simple key. If the laptop can connect, it supports WPA.
The other way is to use a commerical "auditor" program. I use the free version of Belarc Advisor:
It will not show if it's WPA capeable, but will show the exact model number of the wireless device, which you can then research using Google. It will also show if the necessary service packs and updates have been installed as you won't get WPA if these are missing.
In general, all 802.11g devices will do WPA *IF* the proper Windoze XP updates are installed. The updates are usually the problem, not the card. Windoze 2000 requires 3rd party software to do WPA. A few
802.11b only devices will do WPA.If you have lots of Intel cards, this might be helpful:
steve and jeff, thank you for your hints.
tim
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