Connecting PC to Airport Express?

R

rosiegirl8

Registered
i'm a new mac user (just bought an imac!) and i'm a bit lost. my husband still needs to use our dell PC to access his work desktop and we need to connect it to our airport express. i setup the airport with no problem on the imac.

the PC will connect to other wireless networks in our building, but they're spotty and we'd like to use our own network for the PC. we have a netgear MA521 card.

here's the problem we run into: when we try to connect to the wireless connection on the PC, it asks me to input a WEP. i have no idea what our WEP is...do i have to find that somewhere? there's a space for "create a passphrase" and i tried putting in our wireless password but that didn't work. it definitely seems to know the wireless network is up because it shows connectivity, but then it won't let me get online or anything.

am i supposed to be installing the airport software on my PC in addition to the mac?

any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
You are confusing the wireless setup. The Airport Extreme is a mini-wirless router than has the security on it. So do these steps:

1. Go into you Mac and open the Airport Express setup.
2. The setup will have a place where you setup (or not setup) wireless security. (Wireless security came is stages. WEP was first but has been hacked (very easily). So the powers that be created WAP (and the newer WPA2).) The wireless security is protested by a password YOU put into the router security.
3. Change the wireless security password to something you will remember.
4. In your XP machine open the wireless setup and choose the network and the networks security protocol (WEP or WAP) and then when it asks for the password, put the password in that YOU YOURSELF put into the wireless router.
5. Surf the net.

Good Luck.
 
thanks satcomer!

You are confusing the wireless setup. The Airport Extreme is a mini-wirless router than has the security on it. So do these steps:

i tried going through the airport express setup and putting in a password for both WEP and WPA (2 separate times). for WEP, it required a 13 letter password so i inputted that.

when i went to the dell with XP, i was given a choice under my wireless configuration utility to enter Key 1 under Manual Entry. however, it doesn't allow me to enter my password there. it only accepts certain letters and digits. there's an option for "create with passphrase" and if i enter my password there, it automatically fills in a long string of letters and numbers in the Key 1 box. but it doesn't get me online!

is there another place that i'm supposed to be entering the wireless password on the dell that i created on the mac? it's driving me kind of crazy!

thanks again for helping me.
 
Your Mac automagically encrytes your password, but the DELL will not, you need the encrypted password, to get that.

1) Log-in to the Airport Admin Utility
2) Double-Click your Airport and it will ask for the admin password for the Airport.
3) At the top you will see a little padlock that says password, click it and it will give you the WEP Key that you need to put in.
4) Put this number in the Dell when it asks for a password
5) Surf the interwebs.
 
khehr...miraculously, it worked! thank you so much!

now, i think i probably should get a new card for my dell anyway so we can use the WPA. would it be the same sort of set up to get the dell online again?
 
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