How to permanently disable IEEE 802.1x authentication

[Brian]

We have multiple laptops in our environment that are experiencing wireless
network connectivity problems due to the IEEE 802.1x authentication option
being enabled. This option was disabled on our image, but is somehow
becoming enabled on the devices once deployed. This symptom is currently
affecting 20 out of 125 devices. The laptops have an Atheros AR5005G
wireless card installed with the driver version 4.1.2.144

Is there a way to permanently disable the IEEE 802.1x authentication via
Group Policy, or registry configuration, or some other means?

Thanks.

 

[KM]

Brian,

There is Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies Group Policy Extension.
Take a look at the picture here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb878079.cg070301(en-us,TechNet.10).gif

To get it in your Group Policy Editor you will have to copy the following Dlls from Server 2003's (that does have the WiFi extension
by default) system32 folder to your image's system32 folder:
wlsnp.dll
wlstore.dll
ws03res.dll
And then register the wlsnp.dll (the actual MMC extension snap-in) with regsvr32 at run time.

Supposedly, it should work on XP Pro and XPe but I haven't tried the procedure.

 

[Brian]

Thank you for your reply. Is there a MS KB article for this procedure? Does
this configuration require the SSID of the wireless network? The problem
that we are seeing is affecting home users and it would not be possible for
us to pre-configure the SSID of each wireless network. We are looking for a
solution that will disable IEEE 802.1x authentication regardless of which
wireless network the user is connecting to.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[KM]

Brian,

I haven't seen a KB on the subject but I never did a good search for it.
I don't think SSID option is in wireless group policy settings.

Are you dealing with XP Embedded image?


Anyway, on the Web I also saw the following trick that basically allows you to disable IEEE Authentication on currently selected
interface (batch script):
CODE FOR /f "tokens=3 delims=\" %%i IN ('reg query "HKLM\Software\microsoft\eapol\parameters\General" /v "Interfacelist" ^|
findstr "REG_SZ"') DO set IEEE=%%i
ECHO y | reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EAPOL\Parameters\Interfaces\%IEEE%" /v "1" /t REG_BINARY /d
0300000000000000000000400D00000020000000112233112233112233112233112233112233112233112233112233112233
11220D0000002800000000000000280000000500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000

 

[KM]

I might have been wrong about the SSID.
Please see for yourself: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb878079.aspx.

Following couple links can be helpful to you too:
http://www.petri.co.il/creating_wireless_gpo_settings.htm
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...02d1-421d-bc85-af90cc0ddb261033.mspx?mfr=true