I have bought a broadband wireless router (Linksys WRT54G) and a notebook adapter (Linksys WPC54G) a few days ago and have not yet tried to install. Before doing so I have a question. Both items have the instruction that the supplied CD should be run BEFORE connecting the router or adapter. But I have received the advice that it is better to connect the hardware first letting WINXP detect it and when the Wizard says now put in the CD that came with your hardware then and only then insert the CD. Does anybody have any advice? I have a NTL (now Virgin Media) broadband connection. Perhaps I should play safe and follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Thanks for any help,
drofol

i personally have connected my linksys hardware and then have windows find the dirvers off the CD. But you should choose what you feel most comfortable with.

hope that helps,

LiEB0

Linksys labels all the CD's for its' products in this manner.

Many people will say put the CD away. There are no drivers etc. (On the router side).

Only connection procedures: nothing necessary. Let XP do the detecting.

You may want to view the CD just to see the recommended connection procedures but having been through several Linksys setups you will find contradictions in their own literature.

Basically power off everything: modem; router; computer

Connect router to modem and power up modem then router.

Connect adapter to laptop and power that up and follow the XP hardware wizard. (If it needs drivers it will ask for the CD).

There is nothing on the Linksys CD's that you need as far as software (for the router: perhaps for the card). Otherwise just basic instructions which you can also see online:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satel...VisitorWrapper

Some CD's come with bundled software which you should avoid! My last Linksys router came with a 30 Trial of Norton AV. No thank you!

The way they label the CD's is a bit intimidating but the process is basically fool proof. Both modems and routers can always be reset and started from scratch. I also mention this as often (depending on your modem) you may have to reset it and reconfigure it for the router.



...

Thanks for the helpful answers.. Everything is working OK now, but I had some difficulties, which perhaps I should share in case it helps someone. I started by letting WINXP run everything so I connected up and powered up as suggested, without using the Linksys CD’s. I downloaded the Linksys ‘advisor’ from their website and everything began OK. However after some successful steps the Linksys advisor suddenly stopped dead saying I was using a non Linksys router or an older model, despite having identified it correctly moments earlier. So then I decided to uninstall both router and laptop adapter and re-install doing it the Linksys way, using their CD’s. That went OK except that I set up a second WINXP user account on the laptop for my wife, and when I went to her part of the laptop I was told the adapter was “inactive”. I tried hard to make it work, and connect up to the router, without success. So I tried to uninstall and reinstall, but I couldn’t. (I found the ‘Uninstall’ part of the program, but it didn’t work, although it had worked earlier!) So I went to my user account, where the adapter was working. I tried to uninstall but couldn’t. Checking on the internet others have had trouble uninstalling Linksys items, and I obtained the suggestion to ‘restore’ to an earlier time. This worked, and the next time I re-installed very carefully and correctly. On my WINXP user account, everything was OK, on my wife’s the same again: no connection and adapter “inactive”. Annoyed, I went to the internet, on her user account, and to my amazement there was internet connection, (to my NTL broadband) working perfectly. Experts may think that some of my steps were foolish, but it was my first time in this field. BTW I used to have trouble trying to re-connect NTL (Virgin Media) broadband or change computers. After speaking to numerous NTL helpline people and writing everything they said down I could possibly help a novice with re-connections.
Drofol

Thanks for the update and the info!

My first Linksys experience was left in this post with an awesome link to my particular solution: http://www.d-a-l.com/help/showthread.php?t=50192

It's amazing after hours with both BellSouth and Linksys neither had a clue how to solve my problems yet I found it fairly quick online.

I just had to reconfigure the modem as a bridge. I even mentioned to both BellSouth and Linksys that this is what I had heard but they both said no you don't.

Also looking forward to any help you can offer others!

Thanks!