Hi all,
I have a Linksys WPC11v3 running 128-bit WEP successfully under 98SE ... but I'm unhappy with the way it works.
The card works in plain mode as configured by Windows, but in order to enable WEP I have to run the Linksys utility program "wpc11cfg.exe" whenever the hardware is (re)initialized or the signal is lost and AP reassociation is necessary. The program tries to remain resident as a monitor, but it consumes far too many resources to leave running and it appears that once the card has been configured it can be safely terminated without affecting WEP.
However, the program appears flaky and crashes immediately about 10% of the time. The crash isn't fatal and doesn't take the whole machine down but I do have to stop whatever I'm doing and reboot to restore full functionality. I have no other problems with the machine - apart from this one stupid program everything is quite stable.
I've tried unsuccessfully to configure WEP w/o the utility, using the network CPA to set the SSID, channel, etc. and then entering hex WEP hex directly into the registry. I've included the device entries from the registry below (SSID and WEP key values are falsified).
Q: Are the WEP key values in the registry obfuscated in some way or are they just the raw string of hex digits?
The computer is too old and limited to handle a newer OS, but works fine as is for rolodex, note taking, light browsing, etc. It has all the 98 OS updates, IE6 and the latest WPC11 drivers and software.
Is WEP simply impossible on 98SE without using additional software? If so, is there some other, more stable, configuration utility I could use instead of wpc11cfg?
Thanks, George