Could they make it any harder!?!?!?!

I have a client that just bought a new HP Pavilion Laptop with Windows Vista installed. When attempting to connect to an office wireless network ( WEP encrypted network), the laptop would find the wireless network but would never make a successful connection.

In the Network and Sharing Center showed a Red X on the internet side of the “network map”. The wireless network would always be detected as a Public Network instead of a Private Network. Even it I manually set it to Private it would come back as Public on the next reboot.

This laptop had Norton Internet Security Suite pre-installed. I found that for whatever reason the wireless network I needed to connect to had its security settings in correct. To allow the laptop to connect to the office network I had to open up Norton Internet Security and click on Settings next to the Internet Heading. This should bring up the settings window that should include a link to the “Smart Firewall”. Under Smart Firewall there is a configure link for Trust Control.
On the left hand side there should be a drop down list that should show you the wireless network you are connected to. If you select that item and then click the Edit link an Edit Network Details window should appear. On that screen there should be another Edit link next to Trust Level that will allow you to change the Trust Level for that network. I set it to Shared (or Trusted) to allow the network traffic to pass to the laptop. Once I changed the setting and rebooted the HP Pavilion was then able to connect to the office wireless network.

This is just another example of why I prefer to not use Norton products in favor of other firewall products such as Zone Alarm.

I hope this helps someone else.

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