How to secure a wireless network: Part 4 of 5 Connect using WPA for the first time on Windows Vista

This post follows on from How to secure a wireless network: Part 1 of 5 - Enabling WPA on a wireless router, How to secure a wireless network: Part 2 of 5 - How to change the SSID and How to secure a wireless network: Part 3 of 5 - Reconfiguring a Vista client to connect to your WPA secured access point

The first post includes a detailed description of some key security myths pertaining to wireless security. The first post also goes into detail about why these steps are only appropriate for small networks as found at home - you need to take a different approach with appropriate key management for larger networks.

The premise of this demonstration is that you have configured your wireless router to force clients to authenticate themselves using Wireless Protected Access (WPA) as explained and demonstrated the first part of this series.

Click here to view the demonstration of how to connect to your WPA protected access point for the first time from a Windows Vista client

Note: I've recorded a similar demonstration for those of you using Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Here's a transcript of the demonstration:

Right click on network icon in the systray, click on “connect to a network” – you’ll see it’s listed as a “security enabled network”
"Type the network security key or passphrase for..."
The person who setup the network can give you the key or passphrase"
"Security key or passphrase"
Note: Checking the box next to "Display characters" can make life easier
Click on “Connect”
Leave the defaults of “Save this network” and “Start this connection automatically”
Note: If you’d like to know how to change these settings later then watch “How to view the advanced wireless settings”
Click on “Close”

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I heard yesterday that Steve has done these and that they had gone down very well, so thought I would

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  This post follows on from How to secure a wireless network: Part 1 of 5 - Enabling WPA on a wireless

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Steve Lamb puts together an excellent five part series on securing a wireless network. He starts with the process of enabling WPA -- or Wireless Protected Access. Then goes into a great conversation on SSID's, enabling them, hiding them, and the limited

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  This post has been replaced by a series of five blogcasts as quite a bit has changed since I wrote this

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I've just bought the cheapest wireless router I could find to share my hotel broadband connection with

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  This post follows on from How to secure a wireless network: Part 1 of 5 - Enabling WPA on a wireless