Intel Wireless AND Vista

DeaconFrost

DeaconFrost

[H]F Junkie
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Sep 6, 2007
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I'm thinking of switching my Dell D630 over to Vista Business at this point. I am not a big fan of Vista's wireless utility, so for those of you running Vista on a laptop with Intel wireless, can you use the Intel ProSet utility to manage your wi-fi network connections? The laptop came with Vista Basic, and didn't have the ProSet utility installed, so I wasn't able to find out. I also didn't have much time to play around with it, as I needed to get it up and running.

Intel's website has the drivers and utility bundled together, so I'm assuming it will work...I just wanted to check.
 
Vista's wireless networking has worked great for me on my Toshiba R25 tablet pc not sure what you don't like about it. I use ProSet on my work Windows XP Thinkpad and it doesn't hold a candle to Vista's wireless system.
 
I didn't like having to drill down through the control panels and network sections to get to the management utility. I prefered the task try icon of ProSet to enable or disable my wireless card.
 
I was under the impression Dell had a key combo to disable the adapter (and in some cases a physical switch)?
 
I don't have mine in front of me at the moment, but I don't believe my laptop has a switch, or a function key devoted to the wireless switch.
 
Good point. Every wireless laptop I've ever seen has a wireless off/on switch. Plus I think it only takes one right, one left click and a button press to disable a network connection from the Vista network try icon. It is UAC restricted so there's that.

But the switch is the fastest way to turn it off no matter what.
 
No hardware switch and no function key or hot key on a Dell Latitude D630. That's why I had been using the ProSet tools.
 
I use Intel ProSet on my x86 Vista Business Lenovo notebook to configure my wireless settings at runtime. For disabling though, I just flip the switch on the machine.
 
My old HP laptop had a button for this, so I never really needed to worry about utilities. Unfortunately, the D630 doesn't have one.
 
Are you sure about the hardware switch? My Latitude D610 and D620 both have one. IT's on the left side - the "Wi-Fi catcher" and all that. Shove it all the way towards the back of the laptop and the wireless is off.

Also, yes, I can confirm that both the Vista wireless utility and the Intel one work fine with Vista business.

Edit: Yes, there IS a hardware switch:

d630.jpg
 
Maybe my Dell QuickSet options are a little wonky. Sliding it towards the back of the laptop doesn't shut down the "radio". Sliding it forward opens my ProSet utility, which is nice. Perhaps after a fresh install of Vista Business, along with the newer, updated Dell and Intel software, that will work for me. I would be thrilled if it did.

Thanks for the artwork as well. C'est magnifique!
 
Check your BIOS for settings related to the switch, as it's pimarily responsible for the functionality.
 
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