Best Wireless Utility that can be used with any wireless card

[mol3000]

What is a good wireless utility that can use any wireless card and doesnt have issues connecting to wpa security on routers. well my windows one dont work and neither does the proxim utility that i use to use. What happen is when i up my security on my router from wep to wpa then i started having issues.

[redwudz]

What is your WiFi adapter chipset? I had the same problem with my netbook and WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption. I resolved it by going to the chipset manufacturer and using their software that bypassed the crappy Windows/MS software. Now I have no problem using WPA2-PSK [AES] encryption with the netbook. I have a Atheros WiFi adapter in it. Windows XP would drop the connection every few minutes with the encryption turned on. The connection would work if I turned all encryption off, but that's not a option as my laptop needs the encryption to stay clean and there is no way that I would turn it off.

[guns1inger]

This is handled at the driver level. The application/utility that sits above it is, in most cases, irrelevant. Redwudz is correct that you should start with the latest drivers form the manufacturer. You also need to look at what level of security you are using. Some older cards simply don't do WPA2, but will do WPA. This may mean setting your WiFi setup to either WPA or to mixed mode, depending on what other clients you have.

FWIW, with XP I have always used the built in Zero Configuration service and Windows wireless management. So long as the drivers are good, this works far better than the manufacturers utilities.

[AlanHK]

I like Boingo. http://www.boingo.com/download-boingo.php
It's free, designed to look for Boingo hotspots, but works fine on any others.
Turn off the updates, unless you want the latest Boingo locations.

[Jim44]

All good advice, I'll just mention that I had a similar issue and it was due to the very old wireless router I had. WPA was added to it later via a firmware upgrade, and didn't provide a stable connection. I had planned to upgrade to a more recent router anyway (for other reasons), and as soon as I did, I had a stable WPA-encrypted connection. So don't discount the other end of the wireless link.

My 2 cents.