Import Gen2 AirPort Extreme config into a Gen5?

Question

I plan to upgrade my Gen 2 Airport Extreme (A1143) to a Gen 5 Airport Extreme (A1408) by exporting the configuration from the A1143 to the new Airport Extreme. If I can do this it would be a beautiful thing. Otherwise I will have to re-enter all my settings, a daunting task giving the number pieces there are in my network (Airport Express, switches, wifi clients, telephone appliance, yada, yada). My concern is that the A1143 configuration doesn't map to the newer device because of differences in features.

Answer 1

There is almost nothing to the 5th gen. settings. You can do a 5th gen. setup in 5 minutes assuming you are using AirPort Utility 6.1. If you go this route, then I'd choose the optional new-network setup approach on the first page of the setup sequence. Apple's automatic setup approach is so simple that its easy to make a silly mistake. For example, I used this approach at the start. Under it, Apple names the network. Not liking the name I changed it to what I wanted. Things got fouled from there. I reset the router and took the second approach. It's much more like a "normal" approach to setting up a router, but still very simple.
If you need some settings not available via 6.1, then you can use AirPort Utility 5.6 (even under Lion or Mt. Lion). To use 5.6 on Mt. Lion, you will need to copy an already installed elsewhere copy of this version into the Applications or Utilities folder. If you put it in the second, then be sure you change the name so you don't overwrite version 6.1.You also can extract 5.6 from a Snow Leopard disk using Pacifist. Either way, 5.6 can be upgraded to 5.6.1. After obtaining 5.6 (or +), be careful not to update it to 6.1. Apple will upgrade it to 6.1 if you are not paying attention. Save a copy of 5.6 (or +) somewhere else for safety.
I don't think there is a way to import your existing settings into a 5th gen. If the settings you need are not availale in 5.6, then you may have a problem.