Shared Knowledge
“Laptop Wireless Card, IP Address and ZoneAlarm”
7 February 2006
I
have a main desktop computer, a Dlink router (doubt router manufacturer makes
any difference), 2 laptops
using Dlink wireless cards and I am using ZoneAlarm as my firewall
software on all machines.
Recently
I acquired a laptop for a friend and installed a wireless router and laptop
with Dlink card in her home. Unfortunately, due to the location of the router,
the laptop wireless card could not make a stable, reliable connection to the
router and thus began days of experimentation to include the use of a wireless
network expander device.
During
one experiment, I thought I detected that the wireless card in the laptop was
not transmitting and exchanged it with another Dlink wireless card I had. After
a Windows Internet connection repair operation, I established a link with the
router but no longer had networking to the main computer or its attached
printer. Suspecting a ZoneAlarm problem, I checked ZoneAlarm settings on the main
desktop computer and all looked fine. I then checked the ZoneAlarm settings on the
laptop and found out that the IP address assigned the laptop was different from
the last time I set ZoneAlarm. More experimentation only to determine, that
each wireless device has some sort of firmware ID code and that the router assigns IP
addresses based on wireless adapter ID code. I change no settings in ZoneAlarm,
take out the one wireless card in the laptop and replace with previous card and
network connections are restored.
Thus the bottom line is that if you change a wireless card in your network, the router is going to change the IP address assigned to the card and you then will have to change ZoneAlarm to accommodate the new IP address if you want to have full networking services.
March 2006. Received an email from a fellow who made an excellent suggestion about ZoneAlarm. In the Zones section of ZoneAlarm, add one new zone but instead of defining a specific IP address, select the IP range option and then enter a starting and ending IP address range. Then when you add more wireless devices or move adapters, you will not have to change entries in the ZoneAlarm software of each machine!