QWhen I was at a friend's home recently, I was unable to connect my laptop (a Dell Studio 1555 running Windows Vista) to their wireless Internet.
I selected their network and entered the password but I could only obtain a "local" connection. I haven't had this problem in the past while connecting to other secured wireless connections.
When I looked at the properties of their network, I found that they are using WPA2 Personal software, while my home network and others I have connected to are using WPA Personal software.
What's the problem, and is there any way I can connect to their network in the future?
KATE GRINAKER, MINNEAPOLIS
AWi-Fi is a universal standard, which means you should be able to connect your laptop to any Wi-Fi access point provided you've got the password. But your access to your friend's home network was blocked by the newer security software that was layered on top of the Wi-Fi in an effort to protect it from outside tampering.
The WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) security software is a newer version of the WPA software you've used elsewhere, but it's just different enough to be incompatible with your laptop's existing communications software. To adjust, your laptop needs a software update for its Wi-Fi adapter, the internal device that connects your PC to a home network's wireless router.
Using the information for your laptop model, I think the correct update can be found at tinyurl.com/9vxt5pz. The update will be downloaded to your hard drive as a compressed, or zipped, set of files. Double-click the icon for the zipped software download to open and display the files it contains. Follow the instructions provided to install the software update.