Wireless Connection without logging in

I have a windows server 2003 that I have set up as a file and print server. I
am running the box headless (with no monitor/keyboard) on a local network.
When using an wired ethernet card I can just log on remotely using RDP, even
after a restart. I do not have to touch the machine at all.
I want to switch to a wireless card (replacing the wired NIC)and move my
server into a closet. I cannot figure out how to make the wireless connection
active after a reboot without manually logging onto the machine. While a
wired NIC will start as a service and connect automatically at boot, it seems
the wireless card needs a user logged on. Any help will be appreciated.

Bob T.

=?Utf-8?B?Qm9iIFQu?=

Hi,

I have the same requirements. Now, the irony is this all seems to work. I
have no idea if it is the correct method at all

The thing I have tried so far is to set the Start setting for the device
driver for the wireless devices in the remotes machines (the server has a
WAP) to 2 which is something like start as a service prior to log on. I then
obtained a digital certificate for the machine and ensured that each machine
had their own in their cert store.

I am using 802.1x with Smart Card / Certificate authentication and the
option to authenticate as a Machine if there is no user context is set (the
default).

The Windows 2003 server has RRAS and IAS setup and in there I have set it to
re-authenticate as User (the default) when a user logs on.

Looking at the event log on the windows 2003 server this seems to work as if
I cold boot a machine, the event log shows authentication success for the
machine. If I then log on I get user authentication success. But there is a
bug - I can have successful authentication and see it in the event log on
the server, but the icon in the task bar will still show "Attempting to
Authenticate" for quite some time then spuriously disappear and say
connected...

For the laptop there is some new intel software to set this all up (2200BG
version 9 drivers & S/W) , but.... the software won't install successfully -
various random errors everytime and no services / programs appear if it does
get through without an error.

I am having reliability issues. I wish to put my server in the garage(!) as
it is noisy but before I do I want to know it is reasonably reliable. To
this end I have been doing large file copy tests and use tests. After about
12-20GB of data transfers the file copies will fail. After some unknown
situations, the links will fail and the WAP needs a reset. So I think I have
hardware or firmware issues (D-Link cheapo WAP).

My own experience is that the windows zero config works really really well.
The intel equivalent gives more info, but I seem to run into issues with it.
However after link fails the connections do not always come back....

HTH
- Tim



"Bob T." <Bob T.@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B407E2EC-5EC9-4D19-9BA6-...
>I have a windows server 2003 that I have set up as a file and print server.
>I
> am running the box headless (with no monitor/keyboard) on a local network.
> When using an wired ethernet card I can just log on remotely using RDP,
> even
> after a restart. I do not have to touch the machine at all.
> I want to switch to a wireless card (replacing the wired NIC)and move my
> server into a closet. I cannot figure out how to make the wireless
> connection
> active after a reboot without manually logging onto the machine. While a
> wired NIC will start as a service and connect automatically at boot, it
> seems
> the wireless card needs a user logged on. Any help will be appreciated.
>
> Bob T.

Tim