Tech Support > Computers & Technology > Internet & Broadband > Netgear WG311T PCI wireless adaptor and Windows 2000 - Wireless Assistant app fails to run
Netgear WG311T PCI wireless adaptor and Windows 2000 - Wireless Assistant app fails to run
Posted by Martin Underwood on July 4th, 2005


I've installed a Netgear WG311T PCI wireless card into a PC running Windows
2000, which I've upgraded to W2K SP4. The drivers install OK and the card is
recognised by Plug and Play.

However the connection object that it creates in Control Panel | Networking
is identified as "LAN Controller" rather than "Wireless Controller"
(although it is properly linked to the WG311T) and the Wireless Assistant
app fails to run (either automatically at bootup or manually from desktop
icon). When I run it manually, the icon changes to an hourglass for about 5
seconds but the app's window doesn't open. Consequently I can't configure
the wireless connection. There are no relevant entries in the system,
security or application Event Logs and no relevant .log files.

Are the two symptoms (network connection object identified as LAN rather
than wireless; Wireless Assistant fails to run) likely to be linked?

Has anyone encountered this problem and fixed it? Does W2K come with
wireless support by default or is there a package that needs to be
downloaded from Microsoft? Searching MS KB for "Windows 2000 wireless"
returns lots of hits but I can't see anything obvious about this.