With the updates and patches run by Microsoft on all their Operating Systems, it is inevitable that you will experience this problem regardless if you’re using Vista or XP.

For Vista users you will get a message “Enter Credentials” the moment you connect to your wireless network. You will be prompted to input a Username, Password and a Domain Login eventhough you are not connected to any domain at all.



For XP on the other hand, a message “Validating Identity” appears when you connect to your SSID.

So how do we do away with these problems?

Well, the quick and sure way to fix this is to change your wireless security to WPA. But if WPA is not an option on your router then you don’t have a choice but to proceed reading this article. Lol…

To put it blatantly, all you have to do is to create manually a “Preferred Network”. A preferred network is the profile of your own network. It is where your SSID and wireless security are saved allowing you to automatically connect to your network even after restarting or shutting your computer down.

Creating a preferred network is different on XP and Vista, and this is the root of this article. How to create a preferred network?

For XP, you can right click on your wireless icon on your system tray and select View Available Wireless Network.



Then under Related Tasks, click on Change Advance Settings



Make sure that you're on the tab that says Wireless Networks then click on ADD.



Manually input the settings of your wireless network like the SSID and WEP for data encryption. Make sure that the check box "The Key is Provided for me Automatically" is always UNcheck for you to input your WEP Key on the Network Key and Confirm Network Key fields.



Then proceed to the Authentication Tab and uncheck Enable IEEE. Press Ok twice afterwards and you're done.



Notice then that your Wireless icon on the System Tray will say CONNECTED without you do anything.

For Vista computers, open your Network and Sharing Center window just like the one below.



Click on Manage Wireless Network to proceed on creating a preferred network.





Select Manually Create a Network Profile and proceed on inputting your Network settings just like what we did earlier on XP. Press Next once you're done.





On the next window, make sure that you don't click on any of the selections. Instead, immediately click on close. This allows your preferred network to automatically connect to your wireless router.



Now you're done. Your computers should be able to connect wirelessly now to your router using WEP security.