I've had a wireless capable router for quite some time, however I've never really had much use for the wireless part of it up until recently. Since I bought myself a new laptop that has the built in wireless, I've decided to turn it on in the router, but I don't want anyone in the neighborhood gaining access to my computers. (I've already been able to slip into one of their's and what I found was not all that pleasing to the eye. There are some strange people on the planet!)

I'm using a Linksys router with DD-WRT firmware (Erick's suggestion), which I like quite a bit. The laptop is running Windows Vista Home Premium. I have no problem getting my laptop to talk to the router over the wireless connection, as long as I don't turn on the security features. Since I don't want an open network, I haven't been using it much.

When I select a security mode on the router, it lists these...

WPA Pre-Shared Key
WPA RADIUS
WPA2 Pre-Shared Key Only
WPA2 RADIUS Only
WPA2 Pre-Shared Key Mixed
WPA2 RADIUS Mixed
RADIUS
WEP

I first selected WPA Pre-Shared Key, set the WPA Algorithms to TKIP, and put in a WPA Shared Key of 9 characters. I turned off the SSID broadcasting and attempted to manually set up a network connection on the laptop.

The security types available in Vista are...

WEP
WPA2-Personal
WPA-Personal
WPA2-Enterprise
WPA-Enterprise
802.1x

I assumed I'd use the WPA-Personal, set the Encryption Type to TKIP, and put int he security key. I can't connect.

I just need someone to lay it all out in layman's terms or write a HowTo. Anyone know of any good tutorials online that will help a networking newb get this thing buttoned up?

Thanks in advance.

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Isn't there anyone on this site that knows something about wireless?

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Well, It sounds like you're doing everything right. I'm actually using a firmware called "tomato" on my router but it does the same stuff. I have my router set up with a WPA shared key (there's very little difference between WPA2 and WPA and my roomates X-Box doesn't support WPA2). I left broadcast on just because it makes it easier to find and connect to the network with new computers. On my Vista machines it just works (enter in the WPA password and go). The same is true with my Linux machines and my roomates MacBook Pro. For WPA on the router you'll want to use WPA-Personal on the Vista machine, might want to give the AES encryption a try vs. the TKIP just to see if that works. Try connect with broadcast enabled first (and WPA) and see if that works.

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