XP not letting us use WPA

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Hi all. My friend recently reinstalled XP; it works fine, and XP's wireless client sees the network he wants to connect to, but even after putting in the WPA password it won't connect. Under the Association tab in the network's properties we are presented with the option of Open or Shared authentication with WEP encryption, but no option for WPA. His settings and mine are the same otherwise, but his copy of XP doesn't give us the option of WPA. What can we do?

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Rick]

XP does support WPA, but only with recent updates (Well, not that recent, but update your XP install to rule this out).
http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/winxpnetworking/ht/wpainwindowsxp.htm

Keep in mind that there are different flavors of WPA and your mileage may vary since different manufacturers have different ideas of what WPA standards should be. TKIP, PSK and AES are the standards you'll find on most WPA-supporting routers. WPA TKIP should be widely (and properly) supported by most devices... It's basically an improved version of WEP. PSK, I've noticed, doesn't seem to have the enormous support TKIP does, but if TKIP doesn't work for you, try PSK. AES is the least compatible of the three, but the XP software does support it.

And of course, your WiFi card & router needs to support these standards, so make sure you download the latest firmware and drivers for your wireless card and router.

 

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The XP updates did the trick; thanks for the help.