| Microsoft Home Networking Wireless Notebook Kit |
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Model: L21-00005
Brand: Microsoft
Manufacturer: Microsoft
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 29
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Easy-to-use Setup Wizard
Strong security features, including a built-in firewall, Network Address Translation (NAT), and default 128-bit wireless security (WEP)
Universal Plug and Play for seamless UPnP applications such as voice messaging, video messaging, and games
Includes a Wireless Base Station and Wireless PC Card Adapter
Toll-free product support, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week |
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| Description: |
| Now you can share a broadband Internet connection, files, and printers between a desktop and a notebook computer. Wirelessly. Effortlessly. Go from room to room - or even outside - without losing your Internet connection.Share a single broadband Internet connection with all the computers in your home or small office. The Microsoft Wireless Notebook Kit includes everything you need to setup a secure 802.11b wireless network between a desktop and a notebook computer. The kit includes a Microsoft Wireless Base Station and a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Adapter. The easy-to-use Microsoft setup software makes it easy for you to connect multiple wired and wireless computers in your home or small office to the Internet through a single broadband connection, such as a cable or DSL modem. |
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| User Reviews (29 total): |
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Microsoft Has Done It Again, January 7, 2003
By wittycentral (Seattle, WA USA)
Yes, MS does it again, they have taken a product and made it better by making it easier to use. They did it with DOS, they did it with a Windows OS, they did it with productivity tools, AND now they did it with WiFi products. All of the MS Wifi products are made by Intersil PRISM-based 802.11b product line. What MS has done with this product is made the setup wizard simple to use for those who are technically challenged and a full feature manual configuration application for those who know what to do with it. Ofcourse it comes with MS's quality customer support if needed. I have setup many wireless networks using many different brands such as Compaq, Linksys, SMC and Netgear, and found the MN500 easy to configure a secure wireless network within minutes. It was even simple to add to an existing LAN. I found the documentation to be better than most others. Signal strength was very good between floors right from the start with no tweaking. Other brands took much longer to configure and tweak. Firmware upgrade was a snap and recommended. A great product for the price, I highly recommend it.
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works great, but...., December 28, 2002
By Tom James Jr. (Blairstown, NJ United States)
works great but I highly recommend visiting microsoft.com and downloading the fixware patch for the wireless router before instalation. I have a sony pentium 4 desktop and when i installed the wireless system (with help from the tech support at microsoft) the computer began restarting its self every two minutes and would not stop. After I downloaded the fixware patch it works perfectly.
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Easy to setup / use, December 16, 2002
By Geronimo
It was pretty easy to get this installed and start using right away. I'm one of those people who wants to get things working right away instead of spending even a minute with tech support and I wasn't disappointed.I have one Win98 desktop connected to the base station and a Win2K laptop connected using the wireless adaptor. If you have only Win2K note that there may be some limitations. For example you cannot manage the base station from a Win2K station. Instead of the kit I bought the base station and the notebook adaptor separately (couldn't find the kit in the store). The base station has 4 ethernet ports and according to the user guide you can connect upto 200 wireless devices using this base station. More ethernet devices can be connected using a hub. The only hitch that I hit was that the Broadband Network Utility did not start up (GPFed). This was because my display driver did not support DirectX. Upgrading the driver set this right. BTW, you do need to get this utility up and running because you'll need to do a firmware upgrade right away (SP1 came out Dec 11, 2002). This is a critical update and as another reviewer mentioned should fix any communication issues you may have. All in all it's been a good experience with this product.
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Works Great!!, December 9, 2002
By PJ (Westcoast USA)
I run 2 computers with this setup, one desktop running Windows 98se and a laptop running XP Home. Needless to say I had both running and on the network in less than an hour, including a call to Microsoft support. I have the desktop linked with an ethernet connection and the laptop wireless.
First of all I ran through the setup of the Wireless Basestation and encountered a problem which led to a call to support. Got thru quickly (2 years 24/7 support included) and had my issue solved in minutes. Turned out that I had to just unplug power from the modem and basestation and re-apply the power to finish configuring the basestation. Voila! Everything worked great. I couldn't be happier with this setup and the wireless range works throughout a 1200 sq.ft. apartment with excellent signal strength throughout.
One thing to keep in mind is that their is a firmware upgrade to the basestation software that solves all the issues stated in earlier reviews regarding the wireless connection.
I am very happy with this product!!
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Absolutely Disappointed, October 30, 2002
By unknown
I tried to configure this product 4 times and it just didnt work. The icons on my computer said connected to the internet but none of my online applications could connect. Spent tons of paper downloading help from Microsoft's website, yet no luck.
The notebook adapter would just not recognise my home wireless network. So, after hours of endless hope i gave the kit back to Best Buy and got a linksys kit instead. It was cheaper and i had my entire network setup in less than 20 minutes. I might be the ony one out there who loves Microsoft products, but this was a major disapointment.
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Base Station is flawed, October 7, 2002
By saabcaptain (Westmont, IL United States)
The notebook card in this kit works well, easily as nice as competitors products. The wireless router itself is another story. This unit while attractive and easy to install compared to competing Linksys products has some major flaws at the current time. Namely dozens of people in just the first week this has been onsale (look at their newsgroup) including myself have experienced a strange problem where every 6 hours or so the 802.11b signal stops cold and can only be restored by removing and restoring power to the base station. While the flaw isn't fatal, maybe annoying it is totally unacceptable to release units in this shape. Until a fix is in, and right now it appears Microsoft is trying to see if it is a hardware flaw or firmware fix that is needed I would hold off.UPDATE: About 2 months after I wrote this review, MS introduced a firmware update that fixed all my problems. At this point this is a good solid buy, but you might still want to go with a competitor because you have to wonder about buying from a company that would introduce such a product with so many flaws initially.
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