"Hawkman217" <mike.hawkins@sbcglobal.net> hath wroth:

>Hi. I bought a Linksys Broadband Router today and have a problem.

Any particular model Linksys router?

>I have the bubble at the bottom that says
>"Wireless Network Connection is now connected," so I believe it is
>actually connected, but I can't get it to work with Explorer.

I'll spare you the details but "connected" does not necessarily mean
that you have sucessfully negotiated the encryption key. Try
temporarily turning off encryption on the router and see if it works.
Once you have it working without encryption, then turn on WPA-personal
or WPA2-personal encryption.

You can tell if you're successful by checking the IP address of your
laptop.
Start -> Run -> cmd <enter>
IPCONFIG
If it says 192.168.1.xxx, it's working.
If it says 169.254.xxx.xxx, it's not working.
If it says 0.0.0.0, wait a few more seconds.

>The only question I have about the actual router is this: If a
>wireless connection is made, does one of the lights on the router come
>on, or is that only ones hooked up directly? Because at the moment,
>only the first light (desktop PC) is on.

No. There is no status information on the front panel of your
unspecified wireless router. Someone could write a program that would
send Morse code on the lights to tell you how many active connections
are in use.

>but I don't
>know if there are settings from the old company that need to be removed
>(or where to find those settings).

What old company? On the router or the laptop? If the laptop, then
they might be some complications like a VPN shim, or security profiles
that need to be disarmed or bypassed. The easiest check is to drag
the laptop to a coffee shop with free wireless and try it there. If
that works, then you're fairly sure that it will work with your
unspecified Linksys wireless router.

Incidentally, you might want to check the Linksys web pile for
firmware updates to your new router. The stuff on the shelf has only
rarely the latest firmware.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558