Trying to add PC - Do I have to change from WPA to WEP?

Question

Here's my set up:
iMac
iBook
Tiger
Airport Express (Main BS)
Airport Extreme (Remote BS)
WPA & WPA2 encryption
I've just got a laptop from work which is a PC running XP, but without Service Pack 2 as SP2 has, I'm told, all sorts of server related problems (don't ask me what these Microsoft bug ridden issues are, I just know I'm not allowed to download SP2)
When I boot up my PC it recognises my network but when I try and type in my network password I'm being tod that the "network password needs to be 40bits or 104 bits depending on you network configuration. This can be entered as 5 or 13 ascii characters or 10 or 26 hexadecimal characters"
The dialogue box that popped up before this where I was invited to enter my password told me that hte network requires a network key (WEP). But it doesn't it requires WPA.
Now I'm not at all knowledgeable about WPA, WPA2 and WEP, but should I assume that I need to change my network encryption to WEP, if so is this less secure and how exactly to I go about doing that? I've had all sorts of problems in the past when I've meddled with my netwprk security. Should I change the settings on my remote BS and then the main, or the other way round.
Seems a bit odd that the PC doesn't just ket me enter my password, but I guess that's Windozed forya!

Answer 1

Even though Windows says it is connected to your wireless network, you cannot take Windows word for it. Most likely the PC has indeed failed to establish an authenticated wireless connection to your wireless network. Therefore, go through the process of setting up Windows to connect to your wireless network again, but this time enter the hex-format "network equivalent password" for your Base Station that you obtained with the help of the Airport Admin Utility.
"Bonjour for Windows" isn't of any use for what you are trying to do. It is only helpful (though not essential) if you want to set up printing from the PC to a printer connected to either the Mac running 10.4 or the Airport Express.
As for the oddness with getting the Macs to connect to each other - try using the manual connection method described in this passage I've copied from elsewhere:
The first step is: on each computer, go into System Preferences, then Sharing, and turn on "Personal File Sharing". On that page, you'll see, at the top, the computer's name (which you can change), and at the bottom, the IP number (eg 10.0.1.2), which you may need as an alternative.
Then, on each computer, go to Finder, then click on Network. You may straightaway see the other computer appear - you can click on it, click "Connect", and then either log in as a user (it has to be a user that's been set up on that machine), or a guest.
As a guest, you can access all Public folders on the computer.
As a user, you can access that user's Home folder
As an admin user, you can access the whole hard drive.
So, if you have different user accounts set up on the computers, it's best to use Guest access and then put the files you're sharing in your user's Public folder.
Now, if that computer doesn't immediately appear, go to the Finder, click cmd-K (to open the Connect to Server dialogue), and type in
afp://ip-address-of-other-computer
eg afp://10.0.1.2
You'll then get the same login dialogue as above.