Vista 128 bit WEP issue

[Ray]

I've read about vista WEP issue where if the paraphase is not 5/13
characters, it will not allow it (I believe due to WEP lack of security).
And I know the preferred encryption would be WPA or some higher form of
encryption but in my situation I can not change the encryption type on the
router or paraphase (yet).

The paraphase that is being used is CLAYTON22, I have attempted to convert
this to HEX (C2D89498A2F46F54F116E950C0) and it still will not allow me to
connect.

On my friend's HP laptop, the network card died (HP has a recall on it but
she can not afford to send it in) but it worked with Vista (Home 32-bit)
because it had it's own network monitor. So I then started to use a DLINK
WUA-1340 adaptor and it's network monitor worked in Vista but the adapter
died (seems to be a common problem with this particular one). I attempted
to use a Linksys WUSB54GC but it's network monitor will not load up so the
wireless network connection defaults back to Vista and I get the "it's not a
valid paraphase" error. I purchase another Belkin (sorry I do not have the
model number) and it failed to load it's own network monitor.

The problem is my friend is not computer literate and I do not have access
to her router to change the paraphase or encryption and if I did, her other
XP laptop would need to be setup too.

Is there any situation to where I can use WEP on Vista using the paraphrase
CLAYTON22?

Thanks.

Ray

 

[RalfG]

Sounds like the Linksys WLAN utility is not Vista compatible. Check that the
drivers you are trying to use are written for Vista. Some of the older
adapters are not supported in this OS.

If the Dlink USB adapter worked with the Belkin router then your problem
with the Linksys adapter is possibly hardware incompatibility. The
encryption method used with the chipset in those Linksys adapters was not
compatible with Dlink's Atheros chipset so I presume it's not compatible
with other brands that use the same chipset. Some of the Linksys adapters
would work using encryption but only with the lower level of WEP encryption
and then only if you manually input a HEX key... say 8 or 10 characters, not
sure about the number. I have a knock-off of a Linksys WUSB11b adapter which
works using WEP (XP and lower only) but I never could get a WUSB54G to
connect to my router other than with no encryption at all.

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
It might be that without access to the Router you can not correct this.
Maybe this can Help, http://www.ezlan.net/faq.html#wep
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking)