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quality and signal strength.) You aren’t quite ready to use the wireless card to synchronize your Pocket PC with your PC, however. You must follow the steps in the later section, “Getting Set for Synchronizing and Internet Access,” to do just that.
PCI and ISA cards
If you purchased a wireless networking adapter that fits inside your PC, you must make sure that you have the right type for your computer. Most desktop computers built in the last five years contain at least one PCI slot. Older desktop computers might have only Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots. Refer to your computer’s documentation to determine which type of slot is inside your computer and then purchase a wireless network interface adapter to match.
Some manufacturers choose to mount a PC Card on a PCI or an ISA adapter. Some of the newest PCI adapters consist of a mini-PCI adapter mounted to a full-sized PCI adapter. In either of these configurations, a black rubber dipoletype antenna, or another type of range-extender antenna, is attached to the back of the PCI or ISA adapter.
Most PCI or ISA cards come with specific software and instructions for installing and configuring the card. We can’t tell you exactly what steps you’ll need to take with the card that you buy, but we can give you some generic steps. And don’t forget to read the manual and follow the onscreen instructions on the CD that comes with your particular card.
Follow these general guidelines for installing a PCI or ISA adapter card:
1.Insert the CD that accompanied the adapter into the CD-ROM drive.
If necessary, choose Start Run (in Windows) or open Windows Explorer to run the Setup.exe program on the CD.
2.Select the option for installing the PCI or ISA card driver software.
At this point, the driver will only be copied to the computer’s hard drive. The driver will be added to the operating system in Step 4.
3.If prompted to restart the computer, select No, I Will Restart My Computer Later and then click the Next (or Finish) button.
During the install process, many Windows-based computers will prompt you to restart the computer by displaying a pop-up box with a question similar to “New drivers have been installed, do you want to restart for the changes to take effect?” The normal reaction might be to do what it asks and click the OK button — but don’t! The software installation needs to fully complete before the computer can be restarted. You will
Chapter 7: Setting Up Your Windows PCs for Wireless Networking 125
know it’s completed because the installation wizard (not a Windows pop-up) will prompt you for your next step. After the software has completed its installation process, it will prompt you in its own software window to restart your computer, or it will inform you that you need to restart to complete the installation.
4.After the computer restarts, install the PC Card wireless station (client) software in accordance with the instructions that came with it.
In some cases, Steps 2 and 4 are accomplished in a single softwareinstallation step. In other cases, you will only install the wireless station software at this point.
While the wireless station software is installing, you might need to indicate whether you want the PC Card to be set to infrastructure (AP) mode or to ad hoc (peer-to-peer) mode. Choose infrastructure mode to cause the wireless network adapter to use the AP to communicate with other network devices. You might also need to provide the SSID (network name) and to indicate whether you will use WEP encryption.
5.After both the PCI card or ISA card driver and the wireless station software are installed, shut down the computer.
6.Unplug the computer and install the PCI card or ISA card in an available slot.
7.Plug in the computer and restart it.
Although most internal Wi-Fi adapters use the PCI bus in your PC, a few use the ISA bus. (This is an older system that’s gradually being phased out of newer computers.) Most of the time, PCI systems will automatically detect the new hardware that you’ve installed (the wireless network adapter) when you restart the computer. If you’re using an ISA adapter, you might have to manually prompt the computer to recognize the new card by using the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard. To start the wizard, choose Start Settings Control Panel and then double-click the Add/Remove Hardware icon.
Windows will recognize that you have installed new hardware and will automatically search the hard drive for the driver. When Windows finds the driver, it will enable the driver for the adapter, and you’re done.
USB adapters
If you purchased a USB adapter, these are easy to install in your USB port. All new PCs and laptops come with at least one (and usually two) USB port(s). Most USB adapters attach to the USB port via a USB cable. Some new devices are so lightweight and compact that you can plug them directly into the USB port. (Refer to Chapter 8 if you are a Mac user.)