Ha ha D&C, nice points again and well heeded..no need for reformat I know so some advice to get me straight about hooking up to ap in my situation is what's needed.

Can connect when I set client up as domain member, and with encryption/authentication, Group Policies Radius etc

These are XP professional clients i can work

But when I try as I might be outside your house, with an unsecure ap which is 'open', then no go - This is with this XP home laptop

All came about as a test against how easy it would be to hack my ap, and left with the same old, boring question: These unsecure aps look secure to me - I can't connect

What's the problem - XP Home, not being domain member

I obviously don't know