connect to wireless other than internal wifi card

Blessings & peace! Majorgeeks! Boss Hog! I'm trying to connect to a wireless usb adapter so I can do distance scanning for networks near rural dwellings. You dig? My wifi works fine, I have an Acer tm 4500li, xp "pro", netgear wifi usb which works fine on a desktop. My laptop doesn't notice the usb adapter at all. Smiley

 

I hope I am not prying, but why do you want to do distance scanning for WIFI?

 

Hello, and thanks for the query. As stated, I'm trying to collect a signal for some folks who are very rural. It's a long shot, but worth a try, I should think. Rural america. Dial-up this side of the road, cable over there, wireless in the mcmansion. Nothing sordid. Take it from me, this isn't where you would shop for sordid. I'm not going to hack the signal if it's wep, etc.

And I guess I need to connect through the usb wifi adapter.

Thanks

 

Okay. Have you installed the drivers for the adapter?

 

Dear Collins,
Thank you very much for responding. This adapter didn't come with a cd or anything ($40 new) and it was readily accepted by my XP desktop. It was some months ago when I attached it, and it hooked up with a couple clicks, as I redundantly recall. No contact with the hardware feature, and here I am on line! I'm not sure if I can hack a particular usb port? Thanks for your help.

 

Surely if you are using the adapter now to connect to your own WIFI then you will not have problems connecting to other WIFI?

 

Dear Collins,
My laptop has internal wifi which works fine. I am trying to scan with a remote wifi ubs adaptor so I can wave it around attached to a dish. I cannot get my acer to even notice the adaptor, much less give me the option. I've been able to hook up to dial-up (in the past) without a problem. I seem to be having trouble explaining this. How am I doing?

 

You are making sense.

Please try this: Plug in the device and right-click on "My Computer" and choose "Manage". Look on the left of the window that opens for "Device Manager". Please post if there are any ?s or !s in the list, or find the device and post it's status.

 

Cantenna lets you see wireless networks that would otherwise be out of range.

http://www.cantenna.com/

 

Dear Collins,

Thank you. Computer management reports a big yellow question mark?? and then it lists the netgear adapter. Is that what you need to know? I figgered it was equipment failure... thanks again for your help. I've also been away from the web a little this weekend, of which I hope you're enjoying the same.

 

If you double-click on the ? in the list, what does the message at the bottom of the new window say? It should look something like "This device cannot start (code 10)" although I don't know if this is your problem or not.

 

Dear Collins,
Thank you! You got me in! I appreciate your help, this time and every time. You folks have a great service. Keep up the good work!

 

No Problem. What did you do to fix it in the end?

 

Dear Collins,

Thanks again. When I double clicked on the (mycomputer/manager) "?", a dialogue box found the adapter, asked me if I wanted it to search on-line for drivers, and installed itself as windows mysteriously does (why am I amazed when windows actually works? Pardon me, rhetorical question caused binarily), so now I get the option to connect when I plug that little sucker in! That's the way the big "G" planned it, I guess. I'm working another thread about installing the basic printer driver for Hp. There's only 800meg of redundancy there. The manager setting wasn't very clear. I'm not very savvy but I'm nosy and help my friends who know less than me, and they're all waiting with bait shop breath to get some of the hp hog processor speed back. So when I say,THANKS FOR THE MEMORY, I mean that and I hope it's loud and clear. And a few of my friends would thank you but they think browsers will bite and have rabies.

Majorgeeks: When you want the best why mess with the rest?