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Technical Notes on Hardware Compatibility

When installing the special CommView for WiFi driver for your wireless adapter, you should normally follow the instructions that are given in the Driver Installation Guide (to view the guide, click Help => Driver Installation Guide in the program menu). However, there are important technical notes on some of the supported adapters:

Important: CommView for WiFi does NOT support any D-Link adapters with the "+" sign, e.g. DWL-650+ or DWL-G650+.

Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Mini PCI Adapters

CommView for WiFi drivers for these adapters have the following limitations:

They cannot be used in dual (monitoring + connectivity) mode. These are monitoring-only drivers.
Packet injection using Packet Generator is not possible.
These drivers discard packets with bad CRC, so you will not be able to see broken packets and have CRC statistics.

If these capabilities are important to you, please obtain a different fully-functional b/g or a/b/g adapter supported by CommView for WiFi.

D-Link AirPlus Xtreme G DWL-G650 Wireless Cardbus Adapter

There are several hardware versions of this card: A1, B1/B2/B3/B4/B5, and C1/C2/C3/C4. CommView for WiFi DOES NOT support version A1. It DOES support versions B1/B2/B3/B4/B5 and C1/C2/C3/C4. To identify your card, please visit the D-Link site.

D-Link DWL-520 Wireless PCI Adapter

There are several hardware versions of this card: A, B, C, D, and E. CommView for WiFi supports version A and B. It DOES NOT support other versions of this adapter. To identify your card, please visit the D-Link site.

D-Link DWL-650 Wireless PCMCIA Adapter

There are several hardware versions of this card. Versions A1-J3 have a rectangular body with the antenna that looks like an ear that is connected to the body. These are the only versions of this card supported by CommView for WiFi. We don't plan to support other versions of DWL-650. To identify your card, please visit the D-Link site.

Belkin F5D6020 Wireless PCMCIA Network Adapter

There are several hardware versions of this card. CommView for WiFi supports ONLY version 1. We don't plan to support other versions of F5D6020.

Cisco Systems 340/350 Series PCI and PCMCIA Cards

To use this card with CommView for WiFi, make sure that the card has the latest firmware version (currently 5.20.17, released on June 2, 2003). If you have Cisco Aironet Client Utility (ACU) installed, run it and click on the Status icon to find your firmware version number. If it is older than 5.20.17, click here to download the latest firmware, and then use ACU to load it. If you don't have ACU installed, click here to download Aironet Client Adapter Installation Wizard, and then run it.
Once your adapter's firmware has been updated, open Control Panel => Add/Remove Software, select Cisco Aironet Installation Wizard, click Change/Remove, and select Uninstall All Components. Then reboot the computer and and proceed with the CommView for WiFi driver installation as per the guide.

Corega PCCL-11 Wireless LAN PCMCIA Card

If this card has not yet been installed on your computer, install it, boot up the computer, and proceed with the CommView for WiFi driver installation as per the guide. If this card has already been installed and uses the vendor-supplied driver, you should first completely remove the vendor-supplied driver. To do that, please follow these steps:

Open Device Manager, select your Corega card, right-click on it and select Uninstall.
Locate the INF folder (usually C:\Windows\inf, turn on the "Show hidden files and folders" option if you don't see this folder), right-click on it, select Search, and search for the files that contain the word "corega". You should see one or several .INF and/or .PNF files that contain that word. Delete them.
Reboot and follow the CommView for WiFi driver installation guide, as if you card has just been installed.

Using Your Adapter in Dual Mode

Once you have replaced the adapter driver with a new driver that comes with CommView for WiFi, your adapter may no longer be able to communicate with other wireless hosts or access points, because the driver uses a passive, monitoring mode. To restore the standard functions of your adapter, you would need to roll back/return to the original adapter's driver supplied by the vendor. However, this is not always the case. You can use the adapter in dual mode (passive mode when CommView for WiFi is running and active mode when CommView for WiFi is not running) if the following conditions are met:

Operating system: Windows XP or Vista. This won't work under Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003.
Your adapter must be a non-Intel 802.11b/g, 802.11b/g/n or 802.11a/b/g adapter. This won't work with older 802.11b adapters or Intel adapters.
You must uninstall any vendor-supplied adapter configuration utilities and let Windows use the built-in wireless configuration utility.

If these conditions are met, replacing the driver won't disable the adapter's connectivity. You would be able to use the adapter to connect to wireless networks, as you normally do, until you launch CommView for WiFi. Once the program has been launched, it will put the adapter in passive, monitoring mode. When you have closed the program, the adapter will automatically return to normal mode. You may have to disable and then re-enable the adapter to restore its connectivity.