Articles
-
Get Windows to find your Apple Airport Extreme
A friend recently called up, stuck on trying to get their brand-spanking new Apple Airport Extreme router working wirelessly with a Windows XP computer (he uses Macs, his wife uses Windows - imagine the arguments between them about that!
). The router connects fine to his Mac wirelessly, but for some reason the Windows XP computer could not see the Airport at all, yet can see all the neighbours' networks. Clearly it wasn't a range issue.
After trying a few things, and googling, I found that it was because Apple Airport Extreme routers are, by default, set to wireless channel 13. I found this quite odd, given channel 13 is prohibited in the US (where only channels 1 to 11 can be used). It can be used elsewhere though (including Australia), but why not just ship it on channel 6 or 11 like all other router manufacturers so you don't have to change it for certain regions?
Anyway, because the US only allows channels 1 to 11, it was likely that on the Windows computer, the region on the wireless card was also set to the US, hence the Airport transmitting on channel 13 could not be detected. It was set to the US probably because the person who installed the drivers couldn't be bothered changing it from the default and didn't know the consequences.
So the solution? Rather than checking and changing the wireless region on all computers, just change the Airport's channel to 1, 6 or 11 (the numerical gap is designed to minimise interference). To do this, fire up the Airport utility on Mac or Windows, find Manual Settings, and under Wireless there should be an option to change the wireless channel. I don't know the exact steps as I helped him over the phone, but it shouldn't be too hard to find. See below for more detailed instructions.
If your Mac was connected before this change, you may have to tell it to reconnect so it can recognise the change in wireless channel.
Hopefully this helps someone before they start launching into a Windows sucks tirade
UPDATE (11/6/2007): There seems to be a lot of people stumbling on to this page looking for instructions on how to change the channel, so I did some research. I can't guarantee these instructions work because I don't have one, but here goes:
-
Open up the Airport Utility, located in the,
Mac OSX: Applications -> Utilities folder,
Windows: Start -> All Programs -> AirPort folder. - If you have more than one base station, select the base station you want to configure. Click rescan if you can't see it there.
- In the Base Station menu, select the Manual Setup option. Enter your Airport password if asked.
- Click the Airport toolbar button, then click on the Wireless tab.
-
Change the channel to 1, 6 or 11 (the blue box below), and make sure the radio mode is n as well as b and g, given most laptops do not have n support yet (the red box below).
Screenshot from the Designing Airport Extreme 802.11n Networks manual. - Click Update, watch Airport reset itself, and all should be well.
Hope this makes it clearer.
-
Open up the Airport Utility, located in the,
Comments
Thanks for explaining the stuff above. My Vista laptop can now find my Airport Extreme but even though it's coming through with a strong signal will only make a "limited" connection, for some reason.
Basically, it won't let me access the internet. I thought (silly me, I'd scan for networks, find mine, enter the password, and that'd be that. Ah, Windows.)
Do you know how I can get past this problem.
Your help would be greatly appreciated and no doubt linger in the cyber ether for other hapless Vista users (is that a rant coming on?)
Richard
I was looking for some help about a drive I plugged in here in my airport extreme, but can't find it trough the network. None of the Vista, nor the XP equiped computers find it.
Anyway, just wanted to say it's a nice web design job you did here.
Hi Richard.
Just wondering if that solved your problem:
"it's coming through with a strong signal will only make a "limited" connection,"
I'm having exactly the same issue with my wife's new Windows Vista laptop.
I've tried all sorts of combinations but I just can't get it to work.
Any advice very welcome.
Cheers
Sean
Thanks Sam.
I got it work by following your earlier advice. Well it was either that or an update patch that I did at the same time to the Toshiba. All is good in the PC versus Mac household.
Cheers
Sean
PS Hope things are good in Melbourne. Hoping to get down there next year. I hear great things about it.
I am having problems configuring my new HTC TyNt II or AT&T tilt or HTC Kaiser. Too many names for one phone!
I want to use my DSL internet connection on my mac and enable internet sharing and share it with my HTC which is wifi capable.
So basically, I want to:-
1) setup my mac to work like a wifi router
2) use this wifi router to give internet access to my wm6 phone which is wifi capable.
Any advice?
I have an Airport Express and wanted to get my PSP and AT&T Tilt to connect to it. I had to play around with it for awhile but I finally got connected. I setup the base station to use WPA2 and selected Pre-Shared Key and as the password type, then I supplied a 64 character key/password and I set it to use channel 1. I simply used Keychain to generate a random letter number password and increased it all the way to 31 characters and just added another character to the end. Then ran a program on that password to convert it to hex. I then had to problem getting my Tilt to connect to it because I copied a file over to it using Missing/Sync that contained the key and opened it on the phone a copied the key and pasted it onto the setup wizard. . The PSP on the other had took more time as I had to use the keyboard to enter the 64 char hex key.
I hope this helps anyone trying to use their Airport Express with either the PSP or the Tilt. I am sure this process would work with other WM6 phones that have WiFi
gold comments on the airport extreme channel settings, our new vista laptop was within seconds of becoming a frisbee, thankyou
I have a couple of laptops and comp on either Vista or XP and am thinking of getting the Airport Extreme and connecting an external USB hard drive to share for the network. Some questions:
Does the airport extreme really work well with Windows?
Can it recognise NTFS format? (FAT32 only goes up to 32GB partitions, right?)
Are there any external drives which will powerdown when not in use and can the AE manage this? I obviously don't want to have to physically turn the drive on every time someone wants to use it, at the same time don't want the drive to be spinning 24/7.
Alternative is to go for NAS products but haven't really found anything that convincing in that arena...
Thanks
I recently purchased a new iMac and a new Airport extreme base station and the combination works well. My wife has a Vaio Tower desktop (Windows XP SP2) that connected to our old Lynksys Wireless Router with a Linksys USB adapter. While trying to connect that machine to the Airport, her PC does not find the Airport, but does see several weaker signals from neighbor networks. Any suggestions? Would a new USB adapter work? Or should I just slap Justin Long senseless ("Hi, I'm a Mac")?
The Apple Corps is messing with me also. Any help would be appreciated! I have a Inspiron E1505 running Vista and connecting wirelessly to an Airport Extreme. Every time the machine goes into sleep mode or I close the cover, which is probably 30 times a day, it takes a few minutes to acquire an ip address from the Airport. Until then it is "local only". If I run ipconfig /renew, it will time out the first few times, but then get me a working ip address. If I do not run ipconfig, it will usually get a working ip address in about 1-3 minutes. None of this is a problem when I connect with a network cable. Not a big deal - but frustration throughout the day. Thanks!!
Thanks Sam – Just tried it with no security – delay of about 15 seconds to require full link, not a problem. Also tried it with WEP and WPA, the problem is consistent in both. If I run IP config, I get an “autoconfiguration IPv4” of 169.254.66.232 and have “local only” connectivity. I then wait a while and it will get assigned “IPv4 address” of 10.0.1.xxx and an IPv6 address in what appears to be hex and I have full local and internet connectivity. Close the lid for 20 seconds, reopen, and I get the “autoconfiguration IPv4” 169.254.66.232 again and local only.
Neither my Mac nor a emachines laptop running XP have any difficulties with the wireless.
Thanks for the suggestions. Does the above info lead you to anything? JP
Ugh Thank god for this page of tips, questions and comments. I spent 5 days trying to connect my Vista based laptop to my Airport so I could use Vista/360 Media Center Experience.
My vista laptop would see the Airport and show the signal was very strong but every time I entered in the WPA Personal password it told me it was incorrect. My other laptop which is running on XP SP1 connects just fine.
All I had to do was take down the security down a few notches to WEP and change the channel to 11 and I'm now trying to figure out how to transfer all my music from my laptop to my 360 so I don't have to burn every single disc again.
I had a similar situation. My roomate has a mac and an airport, me with two pcs (one laptop both running vista premium, 1 32bit other 64 bit).
My computers saw the network but were unable to connect. After trying to install the utility with no success, using his mac, I retrieved the hexidecimal conversion of the wireless network password. After inserting that when windows prompted me for the password, the computers connected right away and now work with a hitch.
I believe he went to the airport where you can configure the network and change the password etc...
My fiancee and I have spent about 6 hours trying to figure out why his PC couldn't connect to our Airport Extreme Base. My MAC was having no issue at all but his computer couldn't acquire a network address. Upon reading your blog I switched the channel to 11 and he rebooted his computer and no issue connecting. Thanks so much for the information posted!!!
My fiancee and I have spent about 6 hours trying to figure out why his PC couldn't connect to our Airport Extreme Base. My MAC was having no issue at all but his computer couldn't acquire a network address. Upon reading your blog I switched the channel to 11 and he rebooted his computer and no issue connecting. Thanks so much for the information posted!!!
Hi! Firstly - great page - been pulling my hair for days now coz my Packard Bell (running Windows Vista) and MacBook Pro are giving me headaches over a new Airport Express.
I've tried what you've suggested on your page - with WEP, WPA/WPA2 Personal++, changing the chanel to 1, 6 and 11 and more, but nothing seems to work. I'm starting to think that it may be a problem with my wireless network connections on my Packard Bell... coz my Mac connects to the internet via cable and the Airport Express without any problems, while the Pacard Bell laptop only connects via cable. Do you know what the settings should be after clicking the "Change advanced settings"-tab?
Both laptops were working fine until my previous airport express caught fire...lol.. but the new updates and layouts are confusing me.
Very sorry if I'm repeating old questions! Thanks for ANY help!
Hi again,
I'm not able to set up the Airport Express with the CD that came with it on my Packard Bell (I sorted out the settings from my MAC instead), BUT the laptop does detect(see) the wireless internet connection. The signal from the router is excellent on both laptops, and according to the Apple Service senter I have set up the Airport Express correctly on the actual router and MacBook, the only thing they could not help me with was the Packard Bell settings.
I've been to several setting pages on the internet, but nothing seems to work.
I've gone through ALL the chanels AND tried all the different radiomods as well... I downloaded the Airport Radar (http://www.macwireless.com) and my signal is twice or three times as strong as the other people on the list. HOWEVER, when I went to the manual settings on my Airport Express and checked the wireless clients the noise value is -96 and signal -42 for my Macbook Pro, while the Packard Bell has a noise value of -95 and oly -1 in signal. Is there anything I can do to "share" the signal between the two laptops? This might sound silly but this is the ONLY thing I can think of now after reading page after page about my problem on the internet for the past week.
I've tried all possible security options as well, but it didn't change anything.
Again - if you have ANY clue on what to do - I truely would appreciate any advice!
Thanks!
Mary
Hi again,
I'm not able to set up the Airport Express with the CD that came with it on my Packard Bell (I sorted out the settings from my MAC instead), BUT the laptop does detect(see) the wireless internet connection. The signal from the router is excellent on both laptops, and according to the Apple Service senter I have set up the Airport Express correctly on the actual router and MacBook, the only thing they could not help me with was the Packard Bell settings.
I've been to several setting pages on the internet, but nothing seems to work.
I've gone through ALL the chanels AND tried all the different radiomods as well... I downloaded the Airport Radar (http://www.macwireless.com) and my signal is twice or three times as strong as the other people on the list. HOWEVER, when I went to the manual settings on my Airport Express and checked the wireless clients the noise value is -96 and signal -42 for my Macbook Pro, while the Packard Bell has a noise value of -95 and oly -1 in signal. Is there anything I can do to "share" the signal between the two laptops? This might sound silly but this is the ONLY thing I can think of now after reading page after page about my problem on the internet for the past week.
I've tried all possible security options as well, but it didn't change anything.
Again - if you have ANY clue on what to do - I truely would appreciate any advice!
And yea - don't ask me how - but started coming smoke from the previous Airport Express...
Thanks!
Mary
THANKS!!! Boy did that help...I simply changed "automatic" to "1" on my airport and now the PC is online!!!
I cannot seem to map my Maxtor OneTouch to my Windows machines through my AEBS (One W7, Two Vista) The Network is connecting wirelessly just fine, but I cannot 'find' the AEBS or the Drive in the network in order to map it. I can ping the Router, but again, no amount of sharing reconfiguring is doing the trick. Help!!! (and I don't care what apple says, there is no 'disk utility' on the installation disk.)
GREAT! GREAT! GREAT! :-)
Thanks for the rescue mate! We (a Windows owner and me) were starting to go nuts about this Windows-not-finding-channel-13-thing! Now changed it to channel 1, and voilá, there was the Network showing up.
Thanks for helping out two people in Amsterdam!
Joep
You are my idol! I just googled 4 hours before I found this site: switched channel from automatic to 11 and finally my XP too understand what's going on!
Apple "support" doesn't mention even half word that automatic setting might cause problems...
Thanks guys, your input helped me a lot!
I was looking for days how to get the Airport express working on our existing network with windows 7.
When I tried without security it finally worked (why didn't I think of that before ;) ). Then I tried to put security back on:
- the network with WPA2-PSK (with AES encryption)
- the airport express on WPA/WP2
Worked like a charm! Thanks a lot, I'm going to enjoy the music now. Finally!!!
Jan's tip above helped me connect my wife's Windows 7 machine to our Airport Extreme wireless network. It could find the network, but couldn't join. Ironically, the reason I hadn't been doing WPA2 before (it was set to WEP) was because her earlier Windows laptops didn't support WPA2...
Help, I'm drowning in hardware. Netgear, N600, Airport Express and Airport extreme and Apple Passport and don't see my particular issue discussed.
I am on a 3 month assignment from my home leasing an apt. I have a MAC Powerbook Pro, but need to run Windows and IE (I connect using VM Fusion) for some programs and internet access for my client. At my home I have the Passport (backup and router in one). In the apt I am hardwired, but want wireless flexability. In front of me I have an unopened Airport Express and Netgear N600, but can't figure out what I need. Maybe I need Airport Extreme? I know very little about networks and I don't have any contacts in my new location to help - and I may be back and forth for a couple of years so I need this to work.
I will want to print (which could be hardwired if necessary) and have wireless internet (MAC and Windows XP) access for me and any visitors. Can anyone help me with what hardware I need and how to connect? And do I turn Airport off if I add a new wireless?
(Also at home, Airport is connected and does automatic backup and is trying to do a backup here. How do I stop it from trying to do a backup?)
I appreciate any help.
Help! I looked over your posts, tried, and am still not connected.
The house has an Airport Express. A Mac and a Dell laptop access internet okay. My Vista laptop is connected to the network, but no internet access. I tried turning off the firewall, my setting is WAP2 personal and Encryption AES. What else can I do?
Thanks a lot!!!! It did help me too!!! I am really appreciated!
This is all nice, but the new Mountain lion software is different. Could you possibly list new instructions for the new software?
Thank you! Thank you! I have read over a dozen forums all looking at the same issue and tried everything for days and days and 4 hours straight today alone. Your simple advice to change the wifi channel from Automatic to 1, 6 or 11 worked like magic. I'm glad I persisted and found this forum, or else I'd have had to move offices entirely to somewhere where they didn't use Apple Airports for the sake of my Windows PC. It was such a simple solution, and not because the Apple Airport wasnt capable of being compatable, but simply because Apple thought the default auto setting should be unconventional enough to hate on PCs. Apple is the devil!
Thank you so much for your advice -- it helped us out a lot. :)




Excellent advice on the Airport Extreme settings - had a nightmare trying to get my vista laptop to see it but after changing the channel to 11 it worked first time. Thank you very much. (nice site by the way) - Cheers