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I have Internet Sharing enabled: enter image description here enter image description here

The WEP password is aaaaa. I understand that my MacBook Pro now acts as a wireless access point. My Windows XP PC can see this. However, when I enter aaaaa as a password, I can't connect :(

Am I missing something? I've read about WEP being seriously outdated, that WiFi device manufacturers hadn't yet agreed on a unified way to treat passwords through WEP.

So I did some experiments. As a control setup, I'll hold my Mac password to aaaaa or AAAAA at all times. I've tried the following passwords on my Windows:

Mac password: aaaaa
aaaaa - Fail
6161616161 - Fail (61 is the hex ASCII code for a)

Mac password: AAAAA
AAAAA - Fail
4141414141 - Fail (41 is the hex ASCII code for A)

UPDATE

Yes, I also tried using 128-bit WEP, trying out the same experiments above for aaaaaaaaaaaaa and AAAAAAAAAAAAA. It still fails.

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Have you been able to connect with anything else? – Thilo Aug 14 '11 at 2:58
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One layer at a time: Get it working without any encryption first. When that works, then add encryption. – JRobert Aug 14 '11 at 12:05
@JRobert, yes, I got it working without encryption before I posted this question :) – Kit Aug 14 '11 at 12:46
Good, that's useful to know. Is there another security mode than WEP available to both machines, that you can try? – JRobert Aug 14 '11 at 18:06
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@JRobert, Mac OS X sharing supports only WEP (40-bit and 128-bit). I have also successfully connected a smartphone. I think Windows and Mac haven't come to terms with how to treat WEP passwords (hex, plaintext, or otherwise) – Kit Aug 15 '11 at 0:03

4 Answers

up vote 0 down vote accepted

On the Mac:

-- Use 128-bit encryption. (Windows has 64 and 128, Apple has 40 and 128.)

-- Use a 13-character password.

On the PC:

-- Under "Wireless Security Type", select "Use Static WEP keys".

-- And finally, under "Access Point Authentication:", select "Shared".

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up vote 0 down vote

Have you tried using 128bit WEP? Even though it says 40 bit is more compatible, switching might work.

Also, make sure that any drivers on the XP machine are up to date. If the XP machine has a vendor-specific networking application, try connecting using that instead of XP's built-in wireless menu, and vice versa.

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Yes, I also tried 128-bit WEP. Still to no avail :( – Kit Aug 14 '11 at 4:26
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Try 40-bit WEP with password length of 10 characters. My MBP WEP key is 1234567890 and it works.

enter image description here

I disabled my internet sharing in this pic.

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How did you input the password on your MBP? 1234567890, $1234567890, or 0x1234567890? – Kit Aug 14 '11 at 6:18
just 1234567890 NO prefixes – palaniraja Aug 14 '11 at 19:11
up vote 2 down vote

WOOHOO! think I finally solved the problem.

From the taskbar I right-clicked on the MacOSX network and hit configure...(which now shows up as properties...) and saw that the security type had defaulted to none even though encryption type was still set to WEP. I changed the security type to Shared and it now works. It took a few minutes to register the network and only once I changed it to a home network did the internet connectivity kick in. A 40bit wep key works fine, ABC12 or 4142433131...

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