AirPort Express: XP & Vista

Hi all,
I'm hoping that someone could help me with a strange (and annoying!) issue I'm experiencing with my AirPort Extreme.
I have the AirPort up and running to share the Internet and have two wireless Windows XP Professional PCs connected to it, no problem. However, I am experiencing problems when connecting a Vista Ultimate machine. When I switch it on, the icon representing the wireless connection first displays an exclamation mark (which says "Limited or No connectivity"). After about 5 minutes, this icon changes so the exclamation mark has gone and it says "Local access only" (I.E. I can't get the internet). Sometimes when I restart the computer it will connect and I can go online but mostly I end up with the same problem.
If anyone has any tips on this I'd really appreciate it. I'm running Norton products on all of the computers mentioned and it is fully up to date. The strange thing is the wireless connectivity on the Vista machine has worked once or twice in about 30 restarts.
Many thanks in advance for your help.

Did you unplug and plug the Airport Express after making changes? Sometimes you have to power cycle it.
If it still doesn't work:
I would definitely reset the Airport Express again. It is holding on to the settings from your previous configuration(?) Make sure that you hold it in for a length of time -- 30 seconds? And power cycle it once it turns green.

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Installing Airport Express on VISTA system

Have an Airport Express from 2005 that has been successfully installed and running without problems on an HP Laptop running Windows XP. Just got a new HP Laptop running VISTA. Have heard a lot of issues related to installing with VISTA. Can't imagine that the distribution CD from back in 2005 is the right place to begin. Apple store suggests that I just buy a new Airport Express but obviously I do not want to do that. Does anyone know the most efficient steps that will lead me to a successful installation of my old Airport Express on VISTA? Thanks in advance for any help.

The following worked for me.
Cancel any documents in the printer queue.
Open Control Panel > Printers and delete your AirPort Express Printer.
Open Control Panel\Programs > "Uninstall a program" and uninstall AirPort Utility.
Open Control Panel\Programs > "Uninstall a program" and uninstall Bonjour.
Turn off Windows Firewall. (Windows Firewall prevents Vista from printing to a USB printer connected to an AirPort Express. No amount of port-opening seems to be able to get around this. YMMV. See notes at bottom of post.)
Download ZoneAlarm Free Edition:
http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm
Install ZoneAlarm.
Open your web browser.
When ZoneAlarm pops up, check the "Remember this setting" option and click the "Allow" button to allow your web browser to access your local network and the Internet.
Download a fresh copy of AirPort Utility from:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/AirPortUtility_Setup_5_3_2_forWindows
Download a fresh copy of Bounjour for Windows from:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/BonjourforWindows
Change the wireless security properties of your computer and LAN to WPA2 Personal AES. Why this specific security setting? Because for some reason when you use AirPort Utility in Vista to restart your AirPort Express, it will automatically reset your Vista's Internet connection to WPA2 Personal AES security. (At least it did mine.) Do yourself a favor and setup your computer and LAN this way to begin with:
For the Linksys WRT54G router, browse to 192.168.1.1 and change the settings under Wireless > Wireless Security
In Vista, use Control Panel \ Network and Sharing Center \ "Connect to a Network" > (right-click on your wireless connection) > Properties
Connect directly to the AirPort Express using an ethernet cable.
Install AirPort Utility in Vista using your fresh copy of AirPortSetup.exe. Approve any software/firmware upgrades that it finds.
Open AirPort Utility.
When ZoneAlarm pops up, check the "Remember this setting" option and click the "Allow" button to allow AirPort Utility and any related services that it starts to access your local network and the Internet.
Use AirPort Utility to configure the AirPort Express to join your existing wireless network using WPA/WPA2 Personal AES security.
After configuring your AirPort Express, click on the "Manual Setup" button (if you haven't already) of AirPort Utility, then click on the tab labeled "AirPort Express" and edit the first text box so that it displays whatever you want to name your AirPort Express (for example, "XXXXX").
Directly underneath that textbox, the hostname of the AirPort Express should also appear. It should be the name of your AirPort Express plus ".local" (for example, "XXXXX.local"). If it doesn't appear, click on the edit button and add the name.
Remember this hostname for later.
Disconnect the ethernet cable connection between your computer and the AirPort Express.
Reconnect to your wireless network (if you haven't already).
Use Airport Utility to rescan for devices to verify that it can connect to the Airport Express over your existing wireless network.
Install Bonjour using your fresh copy of BonjourSetup.exe.
After installing Bonjour, if you don't see Bonjour Printer Wizard either on your desktop or in the Bonjour program directory, then Bonjour was not completely removed before it was installed. You must use Control Panel\Programs > "Uninstall a program" to completely uninstall Bonjour, then reinstall using BonjourSetup.exe.
Open Bonjour Printer Wizard
When ZoneAlarm pops up, check the "Remember this setting" option and click the "Allow" button to allow Bonjour Printer Wizard and any related services that it starts to access your network and the Internet.
Use Bonjour Printer Wizard to set up your network printer. If you want this to be your default printer, check the box in Bonjour Printer Wizard that offers this option.
Open Zone Alarm.
Add your AirPort Express hostname (for example, XXXXX.local) to Zone Alarm's Trusted Zone.
Double-check your Zone Alarm "Program Control > Programs" settings. The programs of concern should appear as:
Program---------------------------------------------Access--------Server
AirPort Base Station Agent.................V.......V.......V.......V
AirPort Utility.......................................V.......V.......?.......?
Bonjour Printer Wizard........................V.......V.......?.......?
Bonjour Service...................................V.......V.......V.......V
Host Process for Windows Services.......V.......V.......V.......X
Spooler Subsystem app.......................V.......V.......?.......?
Open Control Panel > Printers
Left-click once on your network printer to highlight it, then right-click on your network printer and choose "Run as administrator > Use Printer Offline".
Right-click on your network printer again, except this time choose "Run as administrator > Use Printer Online". This little "Offline/Online" trick should convince Vista that, "Yes, Vista, really, I would like to have access to my network printer even after I restart Windows."
Restart Windows.
Voila! You can print.
Celebrate by hooking up a pair of powered speakers or your stereo to the AirPort Express audio jack and streaming your favorite iTunes music wirelessly while printing documents at the same time.
If printing ever fails in the future for some reason (paper jam, power failure, etc.):
Fix the immediate problem.
Use Airport Utility to restart the Airport Express.
Cancel all print jobs in the queue.
Print.
Notes:
If for some reason Windows Firewall gets turned back on (aaaggghhhh!):
It'll freeze up your of your AirPort Express printer after the first job in the queue. In this case, you'll have to turn Windows Firewall off, restart the Airport Express, cancel all print jobs in the queue, delete your old AirPort Express printer from Control Panel > Printers, use Bonjour to create a new AirPort Express printer, and do that "Offline/Online" trick again.
* In retrospect, now that Zone Alarm has revealed the settings necessary to allow AirPort printing (and AirTunes) through a firewall, one should be able to just translate the firewall settings over to Windows Firewall or another firewall. (Of course, this raises the question of why one would still want to use Windows Firewall.)
:o)
<Edited by Moderator>

Airport Express and Vista...

I am running a wireless network off of my TC. I have recently added an airport express as an extender of that wireless network - this is when my problem started.... I can no longer connect to the network with my vista based sony laptop. The macs, can of course, connect fine to the network - I have a mb pro and imac running wirelessly. Any suggestions out there?

did anyone respond to this - I am having the same problem

Airport Express and Vista DHCP - HELP ME!

Hello,
I have HP Pavilion model of laptop with Broadcomm Wireless chipset and Vista Home Basic on board. I am trying to connect to my Airport Express router but no way to obtain IP address from the router. On my Macbook everything work fine without any problems. Vista cannot connect to Airport, why, any incopatibility, how to fix it? I have read about DHCP Broadcast flag enabled in Vista, but I tried setting it to 0 and nothing. I am using closed network configuration and WPA2. No iTunes installed on Vista so far.
Please any suggestions?

Welcome to the discussions forum Gary.
I can find nothing likely to be the instruction sheet you mentioned, but it shouldn't be necessary. What you probably need to do is download and install Apple's latest version of Airport Utility for Windows:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/AirPortUtility_5_4_1Windows
If you can't see your Express in Airport Utility you might need to reset it, followed by reconfiguring it with Airport Utility: Resetting AirPort Express
You might want to upload new firmware. The latest firmware for a two year old Express is version 6.3. Airport Utility contains that firmware and will tell you what to do if you need to do it.
If you still can't see your Express, you might have some Windows firewall issue to cope with. Try turning your Windows firewall "off" temporarily, until you fix that problem.
Your iTunes will be disturbing your neighbors again before you know it. Hope it helps!

Airport express on Vista with 'later version of itunes'

Hey everybody....so I'm trying to put my airport express on my new vista machine. It's telling me when I install the software that my version of itunes is too recent.
I did just download the new update, but it did that even before.
Am I just down with the airport or what?
I like using the airport with my notebook and when I just want to mute all the audio on my desktop yet here my 225 gb of music.

It would be your device name ie iPod, Iphone, iPad etc.
If you select the device name then on the righjt hand side the view changes to show you your device pages. You can Navigate between them by selecting the entry at the top
If you select Apps third option in you will see a page where you have a list of Apps on your compouter and you can remove or add to your ipad as you see fit. by clicking on the install/remove button to the right of each app. Then click apply bottom right and your new choices will sync

Has anyone figured out how to print through Airport Express with Vista?

My wife has Vista on her laptop and everytime we try printing through the Airport Express/Bonjour it doesn't work. It might print one page and then stop, but never any further.
The latest Bonjour is installed.
Is there anything else?

Was this printer ever at one time connected to the Vista PC directly ? also with Vista ive seen issues with bonjour printers. Its due to either the firewall of this new junk they added in called windows defender. This application ive seen various results from it like it thought my install of Gears of War was a virus and etc. One thing you could even try doing is turn off the windows firewall and see if this resolves this issue. Seeing as this computer is behind a "hardware" firewall such as a router anyways you wouldnt really need to have the firewall on unless you had a strong need for the extra security

BT Home Hub - Airport Express - Windows Vista : I can't get it to work!!

Hi, I am running Windows Vista, with the BT Home Hub connected via Ethernet. I want to wirelessly connect to my airport express to stream music to the hifi. But, my airport express client is NEVER found via wirless, but is via ethernet, which defies the point of having it.
Has anyone ever got this to work,and can let me know how?
Thanks!

Here's how to connect to you Airport Express via wireless from Vista I'm just pasting it in as I'm not going to re-type the whole thing, so pardon if it's slightly off-topic in spots. Though I guess it won't help you if you're having problems in iTunes as it's known to not work properly most of the time...I haven't ventured that far as I've read it's somewhat fruitless.
I was just playing with this in Vista Ultimate to hookup a printer we have installed on an Airport Express. Here's what I did to get it to work:
Just to make sure all went as smoothly as possible I ran the Airport utility installer as administrator (not sure if it was necessary but worked fine). I then ran the utility from the start menu and achieved the same results as you (no base stations show up) and even turned off Windows firewall completely to make sure it wasn't causing problems (it asked for permission to give access upon first run).
But to solve the problem I then used the "Other..." button located next to the "Re-scan" button and input the IP address and password of the Airport Express manually. This did the trick and I could connect to the Express and see the config screen. As this was already configured for our network I didn't really change anything but I don't see any problems with doing so and updating the settings from Vista once you are connected to the config screen.
(skip the rest of this if all you needed was to connect the Admin utility)
To install my particular printer (a Konica-Minolta laser) I had to connect it locally to my notebook first, let Vista find the updated drivers online (worked fine!!) and then had to add a new port in the printers properties screens by creating a new standard TCP/IP port and just using the IP of the Express. I then selected that as the printers port instead of the USB one, turned off bi-directional support (REQUIRED!!!!) and printed a test page. All worked great. Note I had to do this whole local hook-up then change ports stuff (and more if I remember correctly) for XP too.
Hope this helps. At least until they update the Admin utility (and iTunes please!!!!) to work within Vista.
Other OS MS Vista Ultimate

Airport Express & Windows Vista

does anyone know if there is a patch to allow the airport express to work with a PC that is running vista?

I have exactly the same problem. I have an eMac desktop running 10.3.9 which connects to my AirPort Express fine. But I've recently bought a Toshiba Satellite A100 laptop and the AirPort Admin Utility (v4.2) doesn't recognise it. Please, please help! Any thoughts would be sooooo appreciated.

Airport extreme,airport express, windows vista network problems.

hello, i have the following
1x apple airport extreme router-newest one
1x apple express (used as range extender)- newest one
1xsony vaio laptop with windows vista home premium.
ok now we have the entire network setup finally after hours of issuies when it was very simple just had to click one option. we have all our game systems,desktops,iphones,ipads,and most laptops connected however we have three laptops able to find the network and could connect BUT it shows it connected but its really not, its unable to load anything internet wise. our password is set to wpa2-personal. ive read all kinds of things online with plp and same issue but no one has any one answer so please help...any extra info you need please ask.

so no body can offer anything ?

Airport Express (AE), Vista Laptop, AE utility can't find AE

So.. I've read extensively all of the topics pertaining to this, mine is just slightly unique:
When i reboot/restart my Belkin G or my Cisco N router (with AEX hardwired to the router), the AEX Utility finds the AEX as does itunes, and itunes plays music via the AEX no problem for hours and hours... until...
Until I close the laptop (sleep mode) or shut down the laptop (windows vista shut down). In these circumstances, when the laptop "wakes up" or "restarts" .. the utility and itunes CANNOT find the AEX unless I do one of the following:
1) reboot/restart the router
2) unplug, replug the router
I bought a new router (the cisco router) thinking this was the problem (bad belkin router) but no such luck -- with either router, the AEX behaves the same.
I have the latest AEX firmware, the latest AEX Utility and the latest Bonjour installed.
Interestingly, when i "Configure other" AEx and put in the DHCP assigned IP address of the AEX (I can see the AEX in my router's DHCP client list as 192.168.1.104) .. the AEX THEN sees the AEX without any problem.
I am using WPA security. Oh, and I also have the latest Itunes.
Any help please? And/or is there a better product out there for which I can stream my iTunes library wirelessly and digitally (i love that i can use a toslink/digital out from the aex into my stereo receiver).
thanks

Update:
I replaced my belkin G router with a Cisco N router.
I still have the same problem, but I can reliably get Vista/Itunes/AEX Utility to see the Airport BaseStation when I restart windows vista. And when I go into sleep mode, and then wake up from sleep mode, I lose the airpot.
Seems that there should be some setting in Vista to preserve my net connections.. dunno, any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Airport Express with Vista

I am not being able to make it work. Does anyone know how to get a Airport Assistant for Windows Vista?

The AirPort Setup Assistance has been replaced with the AirPort Utility. You can get an update version for Windows at the following location: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportbasestationupdate2007001forwindows .html. Unfortunately, this version will require an existing copy of the AirPort Utility, which comes on the Setup CD with the new 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station, in order to install.

Setting up Airport express with new Vista Computer?

I just bought a new computer with microsoft Vista. I have a netgear wireless router using WPA protection. I want to hook up an airport express as a client in another room where my stereo is. I had this working on my old XP computer but don't remember how I set it up because none of the discussions in the manual look anything like what I had. Does anyone know how to set this up?

Got it!!!! thanks to David NYC and tesserax. For other peoples benefit, change steps 1-5 on the above document procedure for Airport Admin Utility to the following:
1. Perform factory reset (situational)
2. Attach Airport Express via Ethernet to router.
3. Invoke your router software and view connected devices.
4. Identify Airport Express device id. It will be something like (192.168.1.3). You can tell which id is the airport express by looking for its MACD id on the list and comparing to the id printed on the Airport Express unit.
5. Open Airport Admin Utility.
6. Click Other.....
7. Enter the device id from #4 and password (this will be "public" if you reset to factory in step 1.)
8. Change settings to wireless (steps 6-13 of existing procedure)
Thanks to all who helped.

Airport Express, Airport Admin 4.2 and Windows Vista

If you, like me, have bought a Airport Express and cant get Airport Admin upgraded to 5.2 (which supports vista), you can still make it work.
Start by resetting the Airport express to factory defaults, by pressing and holding in the lill button on the back.
1. if you to get the airport express with a secured wireless network, temporarily connect the airport express to your router with a ethernet cable.
2. log onto your routers administration interface, and look for the DHCP section, which should tell you which ip's have been delegated. Figure out which one is your airport express.
3. When running the Airport Admin Util, in the base station chooser, select "choose other" from the Base station menu. And put in the ip of the airport express and use the factory default password "public"
4. now your connected, change the password, configure the device and unplug the ethernet cable.
5. done

Welcome to the discussions!
Firmware 6.3.x on the AirPort Express was only used in the b/g units. As you have discovered, you won't be able to upgrade or update this device to 7.3.x because it will not accept the firmware.

Windows Vista won't connect to Airport Express

Hello,
I have an Airport Express and a PC running Vista which cannot connect. I was temporally able to connect when I switched the Express to transmit "b" only. But now nothing works. Checked the firmware, it's on 6.3
My Mac connects to the network fine, so I know it works and is connected to the internet. Don't know a thing about WIndows, so any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Chris

Hello,
I have an Airport Express and a PC running Vista which cannot connect. I was temporally able to connect when I switched the Express to transmit "b" only. But now nothing works. Checked the firmware, it's on 6.3
My Mac connects to the network fine, so I know it works and is connected to the internet. Don't know a thing about WIndows, so any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Chris

Windows Vista and Airport Express

I can connect my Airport Express to my wireless router via an ethernet cable and get up the configuration page - easy!
Now for the difficult bit!
I cannot get Airport Admin Utility to recognise the Airport Express (base station in Apple Speak!) when I disconnect from the router.
Airport Express really sounds a great way to connect ITUNES to remote speakers etc but it is necessary to get it working with Windows Vista and get the wireless function working.Anybody sucessfully done it? Please only respond if you have managed to do this personally!

William - I am in a similar place.... I have an airport express running as an extension to my home wireless network. I have a TC that I use as my router. My macs can connect to my network (of course) but the windows vista laptop (sony vaio) does not...... HELP! Have you been able to get any answers??

AirPort Express: XP & Vista

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