Yes, Microsoft has documented that XP will prefer a broadcast SSID over a non-broadcast SSID irrespective of their order in the list.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/network/evaluate/hiddennet. mspx However, if you remove the broadcast SSID from the list, there's no conflict. The issue I was experiencing attempting to use 802.1x on a non-broadcast SSID went beyond this problem. ON a wide range of laptops, including Macs, it was simply unreliable making a connection. 20-40% of the time the laptop would connect to the proper SSID and then everything worked great. But roaming to another AP or coming back gave mostly unsuccessful results. I should also mention that there is an optional patch from Microsoft (i.e. not pushed out by them) that improves the visibility of non-broadcast SSIDs once you have defined them on the system. They show up in the "available networks" list. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=893357 I should also point to Microsoft's documentation entitled: "You cannot reconnect to a wireless network that uses a hidden SSID after you manually disconnect from that network on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907405 -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 12:12 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] SSIDs: broadcast and non-broadcast From observations and discussion with others, it seems that that wireless zero config on windows favors broadcast SSIDs... You may notice that sporadically it will connect to the broadcast one even if you've configured the non-broadcast with higher priority. -Kevin Jim Gogan wrote: > Quick question: has anyone run into any support issues when some SSIDs > are broadcast and some aren't on a campus? > > -- Jim Gogan > ITS Telecommunications > University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
