NetworkStumbler, HP DV9000 series. Intel Pro Wireless 3945ABG

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Phillip Windell

Does anyone have any success with running Network Stumbler 4.0
(http://www.stumbler.net) with Vista? The subject line has the most ovious
sepcs of the laptop. Vista and the Laptop are all 64bit accross the broad as
far as I can tell. networkStumbler just "is what it is", I'm not aware of any
speacila 64bit version.

When I try to use it I get one of two error from Stumbler. It either says that
the wireless nic "isn't there" or it will report "Access Denied".

Although I am the IT Administrator at a TV station (and an ISA MVP) and can deal
with most things on my own,...this is my first experience with Vista and have
only been using it a couple days,...so I am a little lost as to where to really
look for the problem,...what to expect,...and what to do about it.

I gave a link to the application's Site. It is a free program and I consider it
"safe", so maybe someone may want to download it and see what results they get.
It is a "scanner" to detect wireless networks. It is often used in "wardriving"
but has other good uses as well such as a tool for doing wireless Site Surveys.


--
Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed (as annoying as they are, and as stupid as they sound), are
my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or anyone else associated
with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
Does anyone have any success with running Network Stumbler 4.0
(http://www.stumbler.net) with Vista? The subject line has the most ovious
sepcs of the laptop. Vista and the Laptop are all 64bit accross the broad as
far as I can tell. networkStumbler just "is what it is", I'm not aware of any
speacila 64bit version.

When I try to use it I get one of two error from Stumbler. It either says that
the wireless nic "isn't there" or it will report "Access Denied".
Click to expand...

NetStumbler has always been very picky about which wireless chipsets
it supports (it must go deep inside them to grab the data it wants).
Unless you've run it on this same computer, or a computer with the
same exact wireless chip, under a pre-Vista OS, I'd suspect the chip.

Beware that wireless adapter vendors sometimes change their chip
vendor without changing the model number or external appearance of
their product. If you search the web and discussion boards you may
find reports of your adapter working or not... Or look for a cheap
USB adapter that is known to work with NetStumbler.

Loren
 
Loren Amelang said:
NetStumbler has always been very picky about which wireless chipsets
it supports (it must go deep inside them to grab the data it wants).
Unless you've run it on this same computer, or a computer with the
same exact wireless chip, under a pre-Vista OS, I'd suspect the chip.
Click to expand...

Hi Loren!

I have ran it before,..sorta,..Let me explain and I'll try to keep it short.
I purchased a new HP dv9000 series laptop. I had it in my hands for a couple
weeks. It ran XP-MCE and Stumbler worked fine. I discovered the SVideo port
didn't work (hadn't from the beginning apearantly) and sent it in to HP for
repairs. It came back a week later with a new LCD that it never needed and the
SVideo port still not fixed. Sent it back to HP and it "disappeared" into a
black hole. After about two months and tracking down a much higher lever person
at HP they decided to just warranty the whole thing and send me a new one and
they would take back the old one.

The new one is identical except that they bumped up the CPU from the 1.66gig
Duo-core to a 2.0gig Duo-core, with larger HDs and the next level higher Nvidia
Card. They did this without additional charge to compensat for the eariler
"runaround" and because the new one *only* came with Vista and I specifically
wanted XP-MCE and did not want to loose performance (and compatibility) by
having Vista on it. The memory and CPU are the most important to me for what I
do with it and I didn't want to lose performance due the the higher requirements
of Vista.

So anyway,...as far as I know,...it is identical hardware other than the CPU,
HDs, and Video card,...and Vista instead of XP-MCE. The Vista is also x64,..I
don't know if the previous XP-MCE was x64 or not. So my impression is that Vista
is the problem, especially since the most common error is "access denied",
rather than "device not present".
Beware that wireless adapter vendors sometimes change their chip
vendor without changing the model number or external appearance of
their product. If you search the web and discussion boards you may
find reports of your adapter working or not... Or look for a cheap
USB adapter that is known to work with NetStumbler.
Click to expand...

I could try that. I have a USB one, but someone is borrowing it right now, and I
don't know if it has drivers for Vista x64. It would probably be about a week
before I could try that.

--
Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed (as annoying as they are, and as stupid as they sound), are
my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or anyone else associated
with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
The new one is identical except that they bumped up the CPU from the 1.66gig
Duo-core to a 2.0gig Duo-core, with larger HDs and the next level higher Nvidia
Card. They did this without additional charge to compensat for the eariler
"runaround" and because the new one *only* came with Vista and I specifically
wanted XP-MCE and did not want to loose performance (and compatibility) by
having Vista on it. The memory and CPU are the most important to me for what I
do with it and I didn't want to lose performance due the the higher requirements
of Vista.

So anyway,...as far as I know,...it is identical hardware other than the CPU,
HDs, and Video card,...and Vista instead of XP-MCE.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the internal wireless chip as
well. In the computer world, if it didn't come out of an adjacent box
on the same pallet, it is best to assume the internals have changed,
even if the visible buzzwords didn't. If you still have the exact
model number or service number for the old one you might be able to
tell by searching their web site for wireless drivers for each model.

NetStumbler is happiest with the really old cards it was written
specifically for, like old Orinoco PCMCIA adapters. It tries to use
modern generic Windows acccess routes with newer cards, with varying
levels of success...

Loren
 
Are there any other freeware alternatives to NetStumbler that do the same thing
but work with more modern stuff?

--
Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed (as annoying as they are, and as stupid as they sound), are
my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or anyone else associated
with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
Since netstumbler is trying to disable windows services and by defuault is not allowed to, thats why youd get the access denied. if you right click the link to netstumbler and click "run as administrator" that should fix your problem.

this whole thing stems from Vistas' new security feature (UAC) that requires permission for any administrative task to be run. but if you run as administrator it circumvents the whole thing.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com
 
Still doesn't work with mine. It still says "adapser not present".

Stumbler worked perfectly fine on the same hardware when XP-MCE was running on
it


--
Phillip Windell
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or
anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
 
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