User manual

Figure B.4: This dialog provides control over the behaviour of the Windows XP

wireless subsystem when encountering multiple networks.

This conﬁguration limits the adapter to connecting to only ad-hoc net-

works - this is necessary because Windows’ default conﬁguration will always

prefer infrastructure networks and can drift oﬀ if one comes into range. As

such, if you would like to use the wireless adapter with another network you

will need to reverse the changes that were described in the previous para-

graph. Doing so will allow the adapter to connect to conventional networks

again, and hence use it for normal network traﬃc.

B.5 Wireless Parameters

There are a wide variety of settings that you may run into when conﬁguring

all of your wireless devices and it is important to understand their meaning

so that you can set things up correctly. The above provides a capsule review

of the procedure that most conventional conﬁgurations will require to get up

and running, however if you have more complicated requirements you may

need further information. This section is designed to cover the basics of many

of the most common parameters so that you will know what to do if you are

presented with them.

• The SSID (short for Service Set IDentiﬁer) is a string of characters

that is used by a WiFi card to uniquely identify a wireless network.