I always see the same wireless network no matter where I am located

It's your own computer. If you're using Windoze 2K or XP, there's a bug in wireless zero config that causes a peer-to-peer connection to inherit the SSID of whatever peer-to-peer network it heard last.

MS fixed the bug about 2 years ago, which means you're probably running an unpatched and ancient version of XP. Update.

Thanks for admitting that you use XP SP3. Is there anything else you left out that might be useful in solving your problem?

Try to disable ad-hoc networking and it should go away:

You may need to reboot to flush the saved networks list. There are several other suggestions in the URL's I provided. Note that using a wireless client manager other than Windoze Wireless Zero config eliminates the problem.

I haven't seen the mysterious ad-hoc networks for about 2 years. For fun, try installing and running Belarc Advisor:

It's free. It provides a list of updates installed and needed for various Windoze versions. Despite having installed XP SP3, something may have been missed or failed to install. Belarc should show that.

Thanks for your reply. As I mentioned, I have installed all updates. I set XP not to allow connections to ad hoc networks and I guess that solves the problem. However, SMARTSIGHT is still always listed. I searched the registry for SMARTSIGHT but found nothing.

Where is this info stored? I would still like to know how to "Fix" it if anyone has any idea.

I recently >On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:41:44 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@anywhere.com wrote: >

Thanks. I disabled AD_HOC networks and SMARTSIGHT still shows though I can no longer attempt to connect to it. Belarc Advisor shows everything up to date.

Go to HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\ Microsoft\\WZCSVC\\Parameters\\Interfaces key

In there you will have some Static# entries listed for the interfaces used, I have 15 interfaces listed. Right click on the static entry and click modify, in the table that appears you will see the SSID for that particular entry for the interface and it is normally in the first few lines.

SMARTSIGHT is for real. It's the default SSID for a series of video transmitters and bridges:

A good test would be to borrow another wireless laptop and see if it also sees SMARTSIGHT. Why it appears everywhere is the odd question. Perhaps the SMARTSIGHT network is scattered all around the area as in some manner of municipal surveillance system?

There's also the possibility that the bug I mentioned really didn't get fixed as I indicated (and assumed). I'll do some ad-hoc testing in the next few days and make sure. If the SMARTMON network is doing ad-hoc video networking, it's quite possible.

Dunno. I'll check. Can I assume that you're using the stock Windoze Wireless Zero config (WZC) and not the wireless manager that came with your unspecified wireless card?

So much for that theory. Good to see that you're keeping up to date.

On my laptop, which has always had a vendor-utility, and never used WZC, the registry entries for WZC are populated as noted by LRME above. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\WZCSVC Static keys identify several SSIDs that I have seen. Clever, that right-click-modify trick. I have though about writing a little routine to display the ASCII conversion of those hex bytes. Never thought of right-click-modify. Export as text does the same translation.

Actually, MS re-introduced the feature in XP SP3. Old and no longer present SSIDs began poping up after I had updated. The solution was to delete the SSID in the list under Change advanced Settings. Also, if you have the option: Access point (infrastructure) networks only active, to get to the ad hoc list, you have to set the connection type to ad hoc first. Then you can delete the offending SSID on the list there. Then set it back to Access point etc.