A customer needed a wireless router in order to connect 2 new vista laptops (HP), plus 2 PCs (one wired, one wireless).

So I supply a netgear wgr614 v7 wireless router.

I connect it to the adsl modem, then connect a PC to the ethernet port on the router.

When I connect to the routers IP address (using IE), I get a “setup” screen. I click on a few “next” buttons until I get past the wizard, and I see the usual web interface.

I setup wpa-psk as usual, save and restart the router.

I then go to the vista laptops, and setup one with the wireless settings, restart it (and the router (just in case).

But Vista cannot see any wireless networks… Hmm, how odd. No amount of “scan for networks” will find the router.

The other (identical) laptop behaves the same way.

I check the network settings, make sure the laptops wireless switch is in the “on” position, but still no go.

I then decide to read the documentation that came with the router, and it says something about visiting the netgear website for vista wireless updates.

I usually ignore the documentation, as its usually little more than a request to register online (so we can capture your email address). Well, looks like I have to visit the website, download some kind of driver setup file (I keep asking myself why should I need this… it should work as is).

Anyway I copy the file to the vista laptop, discover that to run setup, the laptop needs to be wired to the router…

OK, I wire up the laptop to the router, then rerun the setup file, and it take a few minutes to install “something”.

I get no indication of exactly what its installing… I kinda feels like its installing vista drivers on the laptop… and I wonder how thats going to help me on the wireless front.

In the end, I’m asked to restart vista, and the router.

After the restart, I still cannot connect to the router via wireless (the wireless LED is off…)

I connect to the router web interface again, and I find I need to go through the setup wizard again… maybe the firmware got updated… so I click on “next” buttons again, then go to setup the wireless settings again, but I find that they are just as I left them earlier.

I give the router one more restart and the wireless LED starts this time, I restart the vista laptop, and it can finally see the wireless network. yay!

I test the internet connection, and it works well.

I try the second laptop (thinking i’ll need to run the silly driver setup file again, but luckily it sees and connects to the wireless network without a problem.

Looks like some part of the router firmware must have been updated, so that it could work in a vista-compatible way.

I get the feeling that it will be a while before all wireless routers will work with vista “out of the box”… is Vista to blame? or is it the router manufacturers? who knows!