How to secure a wireless network: Part 3 of 5 - Reconfiguring a Vista client to connect to your WPA secured access point
This post follows on from How to secure a wireless network: Part 1 of 5 - Enabling WPA on a wireless router and How to secure a wireless network: Part 2 of 5 - How to change the SSID
The first post includes a detailed description of some key security myths pertaining to wireless security. The first post also goes into detail about why these steps are only appropriate for small networks as found at home - you need to take a different approach with appropriate key management for larger networks.
Click here to see a demonstration of how to reconfigure a Windows Vista client to connect to your WPA secured access point
The premise of this demonstration is that you have a Windows Vista client that happily connected to your unsecured wireless access point, then you enabled WPA on the access point and now need to configure the Vista machine to connect using WPA.
Here's a transcript of the demonstration:
Right click on network icon in the systray, click on “disconnect from” and select the name of your wireless network.
Right click on network icon in the systray, click on “connect to a network” – you’ll see it’s listed as a “security enabled network”
"Type the network security key or passphrase for..."
The person who setup the network can give you the key or passphrase"
"Security key or passphrase"
Note: Checking the box next to "Display characters" can make life easier
Click on “Connect”
Leave the defaults of “Save this network” and “Start this connection automatically”
Note: If you’d like to know how to change these settings later then watch “How to view the advanced wireless settings”
Click on “Close”
