...in an attempt to get WPA support for my wireless card

[TheRedFox]

So yeah. the wireless access points at my school use WPA encryption, which my wireless card does not natively support, however, I did some research and found a download of a driver set or some such thing that's based on the same agere chipset that reportedly works with the WL110 PC card, even though they're not technically the same. these drivers/this driver (not sure which) supports WPA encryption (assuming I download an 802.1x handler of some sort)

anyways, on to the problem. I have tried many things. first of all, I tried using the "update driver" function, and checked the specific location box, specifying the location of the .inf file. needless to say, it didn't pay attention to that, and instead loaded the same driver it had before from an entirely different directory. next, I tried uninstalling the card from the control panel system thing with all the ports. I rebooted, and when I plugged the card back in, it automatically reinstalled the Compaq WL110 PC card driver that it had before.

and my question is, is there anyway to override the system's common sense and install the working improper driver rather than the automatic plug 'n' play one? and if not, is there some other way to fix the problem?

I hope you guys can be of help to me, like you have on so many numerous occasions before.

Edited May 19, 2008 by TheRedFox

[glocK_94]

and my question is, is there anyway to override the system's common sense and install the working improper driver rather than the automatic plug 'n' play one? and if not, is there some other way to fix the problem?

Basically, you want to avoid the automatic reinstall of your old drivers when you plug your card in? Ok, you'll need to find the *.inf file that got installed with the drivers the first time and delete it from your "c:\Windows\inf" folder.

[TheRedFox]

and my question is, is there anyway to override the system's common sense and install the working improper driver rather than the automatic plug 'n' play one? and if not, is there some other way to fix the problem?

Basically, you want to avoid the automatic reinstall of your old drivers when you plug your card in? Ok, you'll need to find the *.inf file that got installed with the drivers the first time and delete it from your "c:\Windows\inf" folder.

I'll try this

[Marius '95]

If driver update didn't warn you that you are installing an old version, then what you are trying to install is not recognised as a driver for your device.

If you still want to install it, you will have to modify PCI ID values in the .inf file.

Open HKLM/Enum/PCI and search for your wireless adapter. Write down the name of that key (VEN_????&DEV_????....). That's the PCI ID.

Open the .inf file and search for some lines that have a PCI ID at the end. Find one PCI ID that is most similar to your PCI ID and replace it with your ID. Save the file.

Now try to update the driver.

[Idontwantspam]

If it's not an internal card, I'd highly recommend that you get yourself one that supports WPA - although you might be able to get it to work using hacks, when you're dealing with something like encryption security, it's probably a better idea just to get a card that works right. I'm not even sure that you can just use a different driver either - I think encryption is somewhat hardware handled as well.

[TheRedFox]

there has been discussion of changing the key from WPA to WEP, so I think that I'll wait till all of the computer imaging and tech stuff is done to see whether I'll try this. yeah.

[Idontwantspam]

Well... keep in mind that WEP is far less secure than WPA. It would be a much better choice to just get yourself a WPA-capable card.