Points to Note When Using the WXR100, WX1200, WX4400, or WX2200

9

Windows 2000 Many enterprises have a large installed base of Windows 2000 laptops, making this a common choice of platform. Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 includes a native 802.1X client. If you choose to use the 802.1X client built-in to Windows 2000, please note the following:

■Microsoft has extensive documentation on how to configure and use wireless 802.1X authentication in an Active Directory environment, published on their website. Most of this documentation is geared towards Windows XP, but both operating systems have many similarities in the client. You can start with Microsoft’s Wi-Fi center at:

www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/

technologies/networking/wifi/default.mspx

■Installing Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is required for all wireless clients.

■Some clients might experience system instability when using PEAP-MS-CHAP-V2 in an Active Direc- tory environment. The primary symptom of this is a message displayed after login informing the user that the service svchost.exe has stopped unexpect- edly. If you experience this problem, please contact Microsoft technical support and request hotfix KB833865.

■If your network uses logon scripts, Active Directory group policies, or your users regularly share their laptops, 3Com recommends that you enable com- puter authentication to achieve full functionality over your wireless connection.

■Download current drivers for your NICs from the NIC vendor(s).

■Windows 2000 does not include a full implemen- tation of the Wireless Zero-Config service from Windows XP, so you will need to use the client manager software provided with your NIC to con- figure your SSID and enable WEP encryption. When using dynamic WEP in Windows 2000, select static WEP 128bit and enter any static WEP key as a placeholder. This temporary key config- ures the driver to use WEP to encrypt packets, and the Microsoft 802.1X client then overrides the static WEP key you entered with a dynamic key after you authenticate successfully.

■If your wireless NIC’s driver includes the AEGIS pro- tocol manager for WPA support, 3Com recom- mends against installing it. Some drivers install this automatically if you run the setup.exe utility to install the driver. If you are unable to install the client manager without the AEGIS component, contact the driver manufacturer or download an earlier version that does not contain the AEGIS component.

■16-bit PCMCIA and built-in NICs (some 802.11b cards in Dell, Toshiba, and other manufacturers’ laptop PCs) might require a registry setting to be changed before they will be able to associate with any SSID. Microsoft Knowledge Base article 327947 documents the changes necessary to resolve the problem. Multi-band cards (A/B or A/B/G) are generally 32-bit and do not experience this problem.

■If you use computer authentication with different VLANs for the Computer and User accounts, you need to install Microsoft hotfix KB822596. Other- wise, DHCP will not operate correctly after the user