Win7 RC - wireless no worky.

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drdeutsch

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Sep 17, 2004
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So I installed the Windows 7 RC on my aging Inspiron 8600 laptop (5 years old - Pentium M 1.8, 2 gigs ram, Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG).

Everything went smoothly and Win7 booted with no problems. Ethernet worked, got my drivers downloaded and installed from Windows update (Wireless, ATI Radeon, Sound), and proceeded to do some testing.

Now, it did download and install Intel Pro/Wireless drivers for my 2200BG. Indeed, the network center even shows the wireless as connected/green, and good to go. But, for whatever reason, it sees no networks.

It doesn't see my home network or any other networks. It connects fine on XP and Vista x86. Even if I manually enter the connect SSID, security, and password, it won't connect. This is obviously a deal breaker for me as far as Win7 on my laptop goes... any ideas for what I could do to get it working?

I made an image of the installation, so testing is only a few minutes away.

Thanks.
 
Did you mistakenly turn off the radio? There's usually a switch somewhere on the laptop to do this.
 
The Nic drivers available to me from Vista/7 Update are bad, it kills the card and I have to rollback to get it working again.

Can you use just the default 7 drivers that it installs and ignore the ones on Windows Update?
 
I'll try the radio thing - I didn't think of that. I assumed that since the adapter was "connected and firewalled" that the radio was on, but I'll play with that.

Also, I attempted to uninstall the drivers. Upon reboot, it recognizes my device and uses the default drivers. Still no luck with those, either.
 
Got it figured out. Had to go to the Intel site and download Vista drivers. They are older and were under the "Previously Released Software" section, so they were hiding.

After installing those, my wireless connected right away and the FN+F2 radio on/off key even works!
 
My RealTek wireless USB adapter still doesn't work out of the box with Win7, which is surprising. I had to use the installation CD to install the Vista x64 drivers. Kind of lame that such drivers are not included, especially considering it even detected my Radeon 4850 and enabled Aero without the need for separate drivers.
 
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