Open Source to the rescue (of Windows)

I needed to set up an XP workstation with wireless access using an old SMC USB wireless G dongle. This device is based on the Prism chipset.


The SMC drivers installed fine and detected the device. XP with all the latest updates supports WPA2. Unfortunately the ancient (2005) SMC management utility doesn't support WPA2, only WPA at best. The native wireless management service on XP, WZC was unstable and caused a crash as soon as it was started. I didn't want to weaken the AP security to WPA.


Happily I found an open source utility called wpa_supplicant, which runs on Linux, BSD, OS/X and Windows. I installed the Windows version of this, and after filling in the credentials, the wireless connection just worked over WPA2. The GUI version of the utility requires clicking on a button to launch the service. I could install the service version of the utility to start automatically at boot, but the user interaction is not onerous for this temporary setup.


Open Source rocks, again.