Wireless Setup - Connecting Wireless Router

This is quick wireless setup. Before you configure the wireless router, you need to physical set it up first. Try to place the router in position that will best cover your wireless network. Usually the higher you place the antenna, the better the performance will be.

Connect your cable/DSL modem to the WAN port of your wireless router by using straight Ethernet cable. After that, use another straight cable to connect router’s LAN port to your computer’s Ethernet port. Usually there are up to 4 or 5 LAN ports for you to connect to computers with network cable.

The reason for connecting wireless router to your computer is to configure the router for the first time through web. You can remove the cable after router configuration.

After setting up the network, we need to decide what IP addresses need to be used for wireless router and computers. Click here for more explanation to do IP logical network setup and design.

For the setup that I’m using, I use IP address 192.168.1.1-254, netmask 255.255.255.0.

Ok.. Next would be important part on wireless setup, it's wireless router configuration.

Preparation for Wireless Network Setup

Ok. Let’s make preparation for wireless network setup. You can decide what wireless devices you need after this reading.

You also need to know what kind of wireless standard to be used in the network, either 802.11b, 802.11a or 802.11g. If you haven’t read about wireless standards, read it here.

Wireless Router or Wireless Access Point

Wireless router or wireless access point is the most important device you need when setting up wireless network.

You use wireless router when you are just going to build your first network at home. If you already have Ethernet network at home, just get a wireless access point and connect it to network. Check out wireless routers and access points here if you plan to get one. Take some time to compare the price, features and your requirements.

Now let’s turn to wireless portion on your computer or notebook.

Wireless Adapter for Computer Users

You will need to have wireless adapter installed on your computer in order to join wireless network. It’s just a PCI card with antenna which can be inserted to your computer motherboard.

Wireless PCMCIA card for Notebook Users

If you have notebook with Centrino wireless technology, then you are ready to connect to wireless network. It’s just that simple.

If you are using other non-wireless ready notebooks, then you will need to install wireless PCMCIA card for accessing wireless network.

Some wireless PCMCIA card provides 50% greater range than standard 802.11g and support maximum bandwidth performance of 108 Mbps. Here are some examples of wireless PCMCIA card.

USB Wireless Adapter

Whether you are computer or notebook user, If you want to share wireless adapter with other computers, then you can consider to use USB wireless adapter. You can just plug/unplug the USB wireless adapter on the computer you wish to have wireless access. The size is pretty small and looks like USB thumb drive. Click here if want to check more on this USB wireless adapter.

Ha.. there are quite some wireless gadgets available for wireless network setup, but only pick those you need. Let's start wireless network setup by connecting wireless router.

802.11 Wireless Standard

Before setting up wireless network, you need to understand 802.11 wireless standard that can be used. 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g are three popular wireless communication standards. Wireless networks can be built using any of the three, but each has its advantages and disadvantages.

802.11b

In September of 1999, the IEEE 802 committee extended the 802.11 standard, created 802.11b standard. It became popular due to low setup cost and bandwidth support up to 11Mbps in the 2.4GHz S-Band Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) frequency range. For your information, the maximum bandwidth supported by original 802.11 standard is only 2Mbps.

Being an unregulated frequency, 802.11b device can suffer interference from other wireless users, cordless phones, microwave ovens and other devices using the same 2.4 GHz band. However the interference can be avoided by placing 802.11b device a reasonable distance from other devices.

802.11a

802.11a was created the same time with 802.11b with the ability to support 55Mbps in the 5GHz band. 802.11a is not popular due to the slow availability of the 5 GHz components needed to implement products by vendor, more expensive cost and not compatible with 802.11b. The higher frequency also makes 802.11a signals have more difficulty to penetrate walls and other obstructions.

However the advantage of 802.11a is that it operates at a radio frequency that's less clogged by competing signals from other wireless users, cordless phones and microwave ovens. Its maximum bandwidth is higher as well comparing to 802.11b. 802.11a is usually found on business networks whereas 802.11b better suits the home network.

802.11g

Due to 802.11b is not compatible with 802.11a and there are needs for higher bandwidth, 802.11g was ratified in June 2003 to provide high data rate and maintain backward compatibility with 802.11b products.

802.11g supports bandwidth up to 55Mbps in the 2.4GHz band. 802.11g is compatible with 802.11b products because they both use the same radio frequency (2.4GHz) to transmit data over the airwaves, it means 802.11g wireless router will be able to talk to 80.11b wireless adapter. 802.11g also provides better security features, such as WiFi Protected Access (WAP) and WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key or RADIUS server.

Again, 802.11g also suffers from the same interference as 802.11b in the already crowded 2.4 GHz range, but can be avoided by placing 802.11g device a reasonable distance from other devices

You might heard about 802.11n standard, it’s a new standard that currently developed by IEEE and can provide bandwidth up to 540Mbps, 10 times faster than 802.11a/g. Although several vendors already started to release 802.11n products, but the cost is expensive and yet to be evaluated.

If you want to set up wireless network, I would recommend you to use 802.11g standard based on slightly higher cost but with higher bandwidth and better security features comparing to 802.11b.

What is Wireless Network

Wireless network is a network set up by using radio signal frequency to communicate among computers and other network devices. Sometimes it’s also referred to as WiFi network or WLAN. This network is getting popular nowadays due to easy to setup feature and no cabling involved. You can connect computers anywhere in your home without the need for wires.

Here is simple explanation of how it works, let say you have 2 computers each equipped with wireless adapter and you have set up wireless router. When the computer send out the data, the binary data will be encoded to radio frequency and transmitted via wireless router. The receiving computer will then decode the signal back to binary data.

It doesn’t matter you are using broadband cable/DSL modem to access internet, both ways will work with wireless network. If you heard about wireless hotspot, that means that location is equipped with wireless devices for you and others to join the network. You can check out the nearest hotspots from your home here.

The two main components are wireless router or access point and wireless clients.

If you have not set up any wired network, then just get a wireless router and attach it to cable/DSL modem. You then set up wireless client by adding wireless card to each computer and form a simple wireless network. You can also cable connect computer directly to router if there are switch ports available.

If you already have wired Ethernet network at home, you can attach a wireless access point to existing network router and have wireless access at home.

Wireless router or access points should be installed in a way that maximizes coverage as well as throughput. The coverage provided is generally referred to as the coverage cell. Large areas usually require more than one access point in order to have adequate coverage. You can also add access point to your existing wireless router to improve coverage.

Wireless Operating Mode

The IEEE 802.11 standards specify two operating modes: infrastructure mode and ad hoc mode.

Infrastructure mode is used to connect computers with wireless network adapters, also known as wireless clients, to an existing wired network with the help from wireless router or access point. The 2 examples which I specified above operate in this mode.

Ad hoc mode is used to connect wireless clients directly together, without the need for a wireless router or access point. An ad hoc network consists of up to 9 wireless clients, which send their data directly to each other. Click here to learn more on this ad hoc mode.

Wireless Network Security

Here are some tips on wireless network security. Read and implement them in your wireless network. Wireless network security is important, don't overlook it!

Change Factory Default Username and Password on Wireless Router

This is the first task you must do to better secure your wireless router. Factory default username and password must be changed when you start to configure the router. Those username and password are known publicly, so don’t leave it as default setting.

If you don’t believe, download some router manuals from vendor website, you would be able to find all these information…

Here are some examples of default username and password of wireless router from different vendors:

Linksys default username:(leave it blank) password:admin
Dlink default username:admin password:(leave it blank)
Netgear default username:admin password:password

Note: A good password is composed of number, alphabet (upper case/lower case) and symbol.

Change Factory Default SSID on Wireless Router

Please also change factory default SSID of wireless router. Same as default username and password, it would be easy for people to know the default SSID even though you have disabled SSID broadcasting. The only information they need is your wilreless router model.

So, always assign the SSID that not easily to guess, and don’t use your name, pet’s name or home address as SSID. Quick suggestion, you can try to use the name that is unique and only known among family members but not others.

Again, here are some examples of default SSID of wireless router from different vendors:

Linksys factory default SSID:linksys
Dlink factory default SSID:default
Netgear factory default SSID:NETGEAR

Disable SSID Broadcast

By default, most wireless router will broadcast the SSID to all wireless devices. That means your neighbour can detect the SSID you use in your network and gain access to your network with a computer equipped with wireless network adapter.

If you really want to broadcast the SSID, please make sure you enable WPA2 encryption and MAC address filtering to limit the access to your network.

Enable WPA2 Encryption

Don’t forget to enable WPA2 encryption to encrypt the network traffic and improve wireless network security. For most of the latest routers, WPA2 encryption is supported. So far, WAP2 is the best and strongest encryption among WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryptions.

If you are using old wireless router that only support WPA/WEP encryption, try to upgrade the router firmware to have WPA2 support. Just go to the vendor website and check what’s the latest firmware for your router. This is because WPA/WEP encryption is not secured and can be cracked after gathering enough network traffic. Check out here on how to crack the WPA/WEP encryption key.

Note: If so bad that no WPA2 support even after upgrading to latest firmware, then use WPA or WEP encryption. It’s better then no encryption at all. :o)

Enable MAC Address Filtering

You can enable MAC address filtering to allow the computers with specific MAC address to join the wireless network only. This is one of the methods to enhance wireless network security from unauthorized access.

In order to make it work, you need to define a list of MAC address that are allowed to join the network. If you are not too sure how to check MAC address, kindly click here to learn how to check MAC address of network card.

Disable Wireless Router Administration by Wireless Client

It’s advisable to disable wireless router administration by wireless clients. This means you can only access and change the router configuration after wire connecting your computer to router.

Note: You should also use https (with encryption) method to access your router administration webpage instead of http (without encryption).

Disable Remote Wireless Router Administration

Don’t enable remote wireless router administration from Internet unless you really need it. Other Internet users would be able to find and hack your router through bruteforce password cracking or security exploits.

Note: Have a check on this feature although it’s usually disabled by default.

That's all for wireless network security tips.. I would recommend you to check how to secure Ethernet wired network after this wireless network security reading. You would find additional information on securing wireless network.

Wireless Adapter Configuration

In this article I will show you how to configure wireless adapter for joining wireless network.

I’ll show by using D-Link USB DWL-G122 wireless adapter together with Windows XP built-in wireless configuration tool. You can use the configuration software supplied with the wireless network adapter if you wish.

Since I’ve quite a number wireless clients at home, windows built-in wireless configuration tool is used to standardize the wireless client management.

Windows XP/2000 built-in Wireless Configuration Tool

However this XP built-in configuration tool is not installed by default in Windows XP/2000, some additional patches might need to be installed depending on system patch level.

For Windows XP, install either Windows XP Service Pack 2 and WPA2/WPS IE Update or Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Wireless Update Rollup Package for Windows XP.

For Windows 2000, install Service Pack 4 or later for adding this built-in wireless feature.

Please note that WPA2/WPS IE Update is not available if the wireless card driver does not support these additional features.

There is currently no built-in wireless LAN support in Windows Me, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0. Wireless network adapter manufacturers must supply all wireless and authentication functionality for these versions of Windows.

Installing Wireless Adapter Driver and Configuring TCP/IP

Please check here to install wireless adapter driver and configure TCP/IP. This process is the same as you configure Ethernet network adapter.

Configuring Wireless Adapter Properties

Before you start to configure wireless network adapter properties, you need to make sure wireless zero configuration service is running and it’s supported by wireless adapter.

1) Go to Start and click on Control Panel.

2) Control Panel window will appear. Double click on Network Connections.

3) Network Connections window will appear. Right click correct Wireless Network Connection by identifying correct wireless adapter and click Properties.

4) Wireless Network Connection Properties will appear. Click Wireless Networks tab.

5) Tick Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings. This will change the wireless adapter management from wireless adapter configuration software to Windows XP built-in wireless configuration tool. Click Add to create preferred wireless network.

Note: Adding preferred networks will detect and join the added wireless network automatically if available when you restart your computer next time.

6) Wireless Network Properties window will appear. Here is the place you key in your wireless network information, it must match with the settings you set on wireless router. If not, you will fail to join the network.

Please key in SSID of your wireless network. SSID is the network name of this wireless network and must be identical for all devices in the network.

Choose network authentication if it’s enabled in your wireless router. Here are supported network authentications:

Open – If you want to use this option, I recommend you to use it with wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption key that shared among computers on wireless network. All network traffic is encrypted. If you do not enabled WEP with Open option, then everybody can join this wireless network without authentication and it’s not recommended.

Shared – You can use this option with WEP encryption key, however according to Microsoft, the traffic is not encrypted. Too bad and not recommended to use.

WPA – WiFi Protected Access (WPA) authentication with RADIUS server. This authentication is usually found in business networks.

WPA-PSK – WPA authentication with pre-shared key. AES or TKIP encryption is provided. Mostly used by home wireless users.

WPA2 – WPA2 authentication with RADIUS server. This authentication is usually found in business networks.

WPA2-PSK – WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key. AES or TKIP encryption is provided. Mostly used by home wireless users.

For my setup, I will key in home-network as SSID, enable WPA2-PSK authentication with AES encryption and key in network key as last.

Note: If the network that you are adding provides a network key automatically, make sure that The key is provided for me automatically check box is ticked. This option is only available if you choose Open or Shared authentication.

After keying wireless network information, click Connection tab, and tick Connect when this network is in range. The computer should be able to connect to wireless network when it’s in range.

You can create several networks and arrange the preferred network as according to your wish.

Manual Connecting to An Available Wireless Network

If you don’t wish to set preferred wireless network, click here to learn manual connecting to an available wireless network.

Assign Computer Name and Workgroup

Each computer in your network must have a name and assigned to a workgroup, so that it’s easy for you to identify the computers in your network. Follow step-by-step instructions here to set computer name and workgroup.

After that, you can proceed to do file sharing or printer sharing in the network.

At this stage, you should be able to join the wireless network… Have fun...

Wireless Router Configuration

Now we can start to configure wireless router, and I will use Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router as an example. This router supports 802.11g and backward compatible with 802.11b standard. The authentications supported are WEP, WPA/WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key or RADIUS server.

Read the router manual before starting to configure it. This is useful for you to understand the router features and how to configure it. If the manual is not came together with router, you can download it from vendor website.

Sometimes the vendor will prepare some quick setup wizard to expedite router configuration, but I’m not going to explain this method here. I will explain some important and common setting which will be found in most of the wireless routers from different vendors, so you can use wizard to start the installation and then check out the details here.

Also register your product at vendor website if possible. You will be notified of firmware update, security alert and also product related information.

Open your popular web browser (Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape Communicator), then type http://192.168.1.1 and press “Enter”. This IP address is factory default IP assigned to the router, you will be able to find it in wireless router manual. That’s why I said it’s important to read the manual.

You need to set computer with the IP sits in the network same as wireless router, so you can only access and configure it. In this scenario, I set computer IP as 192.168.1.10 (you can set 192.168.1.X, X= number between 2 and 254), netmask as 255.255.255.0 and gateway as 192.168.1.1.

After that, the logon screen will pop up, type in default user and password you found in router manual also. You will then log on to the router web-management page.

Here are the router settings that similar to wired network router.

WAN (Wide Area Network) Setting
LAN (Local Area Network) Setting
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Setting

These are additional setup that required to make wireless router works.

SSID and Other Basic Wireless Settings
Wireless Network Authentication

WAN (Wide Area Network) Setting

First go to Setup tab and click Basic Setup, this is the place you set public IP address provided by your ISP in order to access Internet. It can be one of these 5 options:

Automatic Configuration – DHCP - Choose this option to obtain an IP address automatically from your ISP. (For most cable modem users). Optionally key in a name for this router. The default MAC address is set to the WAN’s MAC address on the router.

Sometimes you will need to clone MAC address under MAC Address Clone tab. This feature is required by cable modem users with the service registration via computer network card’s MAC address. That means the ISP will authenticate your network card’s MAC address whenever you use the connection service. If so, you will need to click clone MAC address in order to clone the computer network card’s MAC address to your network router. If you are not sure, check with your ISP technical support. Click here to check MAC address of network card.

Static IP - Choose this option to set static IP information provided to you by your ISP. You will required to type in all network information manually if select this option. This option is mostly used by business users. Lot of works if use this option, try to avoid this if possible.

PPPoE - Choose this option if your ISP uses PPPoE. Your ISP will provide you with a username and password. This option is typically used for most DSL services.

PPTP - Same as PPPoE, This option is mostly used by DSL service users with provided username, password and IP information.

L2TP - This option is mostly used by DSL service users is Europe with provided username, password and L2TP server information.

Telstra Cable: This option is mostly used by DSL service users with provided username, password and Heart Beat server information.

As a cable modem user, I will choose Automatic Configuration – DHCP option. I won't clone MAC address because the service registration is tied to cable modem's MAC address.

LAN (Local Area Network) Setting

At the same setup page, set up the IP address for the router. This will be the router/gateway IP address that you will set on your network computers. The LAN IP address is private in your home network and cannot be seen from the internet. I set my router with IP 192.168.1.1 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0.

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Setting

Most of the routers has built-in DHCP server, so does this router. The DHCP server will automatically assign an IP address to the computers in your wireless network. At the same setup page, you must specify the starting IP address, number of users and lease time. Lease time is the length of time for the IP assigned to the computer.

For my case, the starting IP Address is 192.168.1.2, maximum dhcp users is 50 and I set the Lease Time for 1 day (0 minutes).

SSID and Other Basic Wireless Setting

Now click Wireless tab and you will see Basic Wireless Settings. These are unique features for wireless router, it’s not available for those wired routers:

Wireless Network Mode – 3 wireless operating modes are supported, it can be 802.11b (B only), 802.11g (G only) or both (Mixed). I select Mixed, so that wireless client with 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network adapter can join the network.

Wireless Network Name (SSID) – The SSID is the network name of this wireless network and must be identical for all devices in the network. When wireless clients first start up, they scan the wireless frequency band for special beacon frames that content SSID sent by wireless routers or access points, finally connect to the network that preferred by users.

SSID is case-sensitive and must not exceed 32 alphanumeric characters. Change it and don’t use default SSID due to security concern. I set it as home-network.

Wireless Channel - There are 13 wireless channels (1-13) supported. All devices in your wireless network must use the same channel in order to function correctly. I select 13.

Wireless SSID Broadcast - If you enabled this feature, the router will broadcast SSID and would be detected by wireless clients in the network. For security concern, I would recommend you to disable it.

Wireless Network Authentication

Although wireless client can join wireless network without authentication, but it’s dangerous! So please set authentication on wireless router, so that wireless client can only join the network after successful authentication. This router supports legacy WEP and WPA/WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key or RADIUS server.

Usually home users will use WEP, WPA personal or WPA2 personal security mode. WPA/WPA2 features are only available on 802.11g router, whereas WEP is the only authentication feature supported by 802.11b router.

Use WPA personal or WPA2 personal mode if supported by your wireless adapter. You need to supply pre-shared key for authentication. Choose AES as your WPA or WPA2 algorithm.

You can only use WPA-enterprise or WPA2-enterprise if you have set up RADIUS server. This is the WPA/WPA2 authentication with RADIUS server instead of pre-shared key .

If your network card is 802.11b standard, you need to choose WEP option, then set passphrase with 64 and 128 bits encryption.

You can leave group key as it is. This settings determines how often your group key changes.

Since my wireless network card can support WPA2, I use following setting.

You don't have to follow all settings I used, tune the wireless router as according to your needs.

Quick Guide to Configure Wireless Router as Access Point

Ok..Here is the quick guide to configure wireless router as access point. You usually need to do this for creating a wireless network attaching to existing Ethernet home network without using additional access point.

Here is how we make the network connection, just connect the wireless router’s LAN port to Ethernet router’s LAN port by using a crossover cable. If one of the router supports auto MDI/MDI-X feature, you can make the connection by using straight or crossover cable. This will create a hybrid network that comprises wired and wireless network. Don’t make any connection to wireless router’s WAN port; you won’t use it in this case. After that you can proceed to make router configuration.

For the Ethernet router, you basically just keep the existing settings without changes. Assuming your Ethernet router IP is 192.168.1.1, and this will act as gateway for entire network. If you would like to enable DHCP, then just enable the DHCP setting on Ethernet router.

Ok… Now we are focusing on how to configure that wireless router as access point. Basically it’s pretty easy. There are only 2 configurations you need to do: LAN and wireless settings.

First configuration is to configure the LAN setting on wireless router, means you need to assign an IP address and netmask to this router. In this case, I label it as 192.168.1.2 with netmask 255.255.255.0.

After that, proceed to make wireless configuration by assigning the mode, SSID, wireless channel, SSID broadcast and other settings as according to your needs. Also you need to configure the wireless encryption to encrypt the wireless data and improve wireless network security.

That’s the entire configuration; you can just ignore DHCP and other WAN related settings. It’s now the time for testing.

The computer with DHCP enabled in wireless network will be assigned the IP and network information from Ethernet router. It will then able to ping the wireless/Ethernet router and access to Internet.

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) in Windows XP

You can connect computers in your home network to the Internet by using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). The main benefit of this approach is you don't need to buy new router to share Internet connection at home.

In order to make it works, you will need a Windows XP computer set up with 2 network cards with one connects to Internet and the other one connects to home network. This computer can be enabled with ICS feature and is called ICS host computer.

ICS host computer will act as a router to route the traffic from other computers to Internet, also means other computers at home can point to this computer as gateway in order to go to Internet. The ICS host computer must be turned on whenever other computers need to access Internet.

Here is typical home network that client computers access Internet through ICS host computer.

If you do not have network switch but all computers are equipped with wireless adapter, then you can set up ad hoc wireless network between computers and share the Internet connection.

If you only have one client computer, you must connect it to ICS host computer using crossover cable.

Setting Up Ad Hoc Wireless Network in Windows XP

Do you know that you can set up ad hoc wireless network to share Internet Connection at home without using router and switch? Of course you can also use it to share files or printer between 2 or more computers wirelessly.

Please note you can have up to 9 wireless clients in an ad-hoc wireless network, which the computers send their data directly to each other. The only drawback of this approach is its limited wireless range support. You would need to have wireless router or access point for better wireless coverage. Click here to learn more on ad hoc wireless network and other types of wireless network.

If you check the diagram below, you have a computer connecting to Internet and also equipped with wireless adapter. You also got computers equipped with wireless adapter or notebooks with wireless PCMCIA card. Ha.. then you can set up ad-hoc wireless network to share Internet Connection without using router or switch. Kindly click this link to learn Internet Connection Sharing if you are not familiar.

IP Address Allocation

You need to allocate the IP address to each computer that involves in this ad-hoc wireless network. If you have 3 computers, you can simply assign 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3 to each computer with netmask 255.255.255.0. Check how to set IP here if you are not too sure.

Note: If you have Internet Connection Sharing enabled on host computer, you can just set each client computer to obtain an IP address automatically, then these computers should be able to access Internet.

Host Computer Configuration

1) Let’s start with the configuration, here I will choose one computer to start the configuration, right click wireless adapter and then click properties.

Note: Please enable this host computer's ad hoc configuration on ICS host computer if you want to use Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing feature.

2) Wireless Network Connection Properties will appear. Click Wireless Networks tab, here I tick Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings. After that click Advanced button.

Note: You can also use the configuration tool provided by wireless adapter manufacturers to configure ad hoc wireless network.

3) Advanced window will appear. Select Computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only option. Click Close at last.

Note: Don’t tick Automatically connect to non-preferred networks in order to ease the configuration.

4) After that, click Add to add new ad hoc wireless network.

5) Name your ad hoc network, here I use home-adhoc. Try to use open authentication without encryption first. After tested it works well, only proceed to enable WPA or WEP encryption. Click OK at last.

6) Now you will see your created ad hoc network (PC card icon) in preferred networks list. Wooo.. You have finished configuring this host computer.

Client Computer Configuration

1) On other client computers, you only need to set its wireless adapter to use Windows to configure its network settings and enable Computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) networks only. Simply follow step 2 and 3 on host computer configuration above to get it done.

2) You then right click wireless adapter to view available wireless networks, you will see your ad hoc wireless network, proceed to connect to it. At this stage, you should be able to connect to this ad hoc wireless network!!! Have fun… :o)

Note: If you have Internet Connection Sharing enabled on host computer, you can just set each client computer to obtain an IP address automatically, then these computers should be able to access Internet.

Microsoft bows to pressure on XP

Customer demand has forced Microsoft to extend the shelf life of Windows XP by five months.

Microsoft was scheduled to stop selling the six-year-old operating system on 30 January 2008 to leave the field clear for Vista.

Now the date on which many sellers of XP will no longer be able to offer it has been lengthened to 30 June 2008.

Microsoft said the change was to help those customers that needed more time to make the switch to Vista.

Sales profile

In a statement Mike Nash, Microsoft's Windows product manager, said: "...maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista."

He added that most of the other operating systems that Microsoft has produced were available for about two years after a new version shipped.

The newest Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista, had a staged release between November 2006 and late January 2007.

In some quarters Vista had a lukewarm response and in April 2007 PC maker Dell was forced by customers to re-start sales of computers with XP installed. In January of that year the computer firm switched to Vista on almost all of the machines aimed at home users.

Software giant Microsoft does run a scheme that lets people rollback installation of Vista business and ultimate edition to Windows XP by ringing a customer support centre and getting an activation code.

Microsoft denied that the policy change was due to slow demand for Vista. Mr Nash said that up to the summer of 2007 Microsoft had sold more than 60 million licences for Vista. This put it on track to be the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft's history.

The XP date change applies to retailers and other manufacturers who sell Microsoft products. Independent firms that use Windows XP when installing and maintaining computers and networks for businesses can continue to offer it as an option until 30 January 2009.

Microsoft is also extending the availability of the cut-down version of XP, called Starter Edition, until 30 June 2010. It said this was because it was seeing increased demand for the software to run on low-powered devices made specifically for the developing world.

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Apple iPhone warning proves true

Users may not be able to add Apple features to an unlocked phone

An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.

Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

Thousands of iPhone owners hacked their expensive gadget in order to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run a host of unsupported programs.

There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones.

On Monday Apple issued a statement in which it said many of the unauthorised iPhone unlocking programs caused "irreparable damage" to the device's software.

The company said this would "likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed".

That warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update.

Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.

Some owners are reporting on technology blogs and Apple's own forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music, on iPhones that have not been modified in any way.

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