Can't get wifi working on Thinkpad T42

[typo404]

Hi everyone, so my dad quit his company long time ago and gave me his laptop to reinstall windows as it had the windows 7 enterprise on it, everything worked well. Then he remembered that he has another laptop on top of the closet, which he gave me to reinstall windows as well. I checked its specs from google and thought installing windows xp is the most reasonable, yes I know it's no longer supported, but it would be just used to browse the web anyways. Now I'm having trouble with getting Wi-Fi working with it - I've downloaded every possible driver for this certain computer from lenovo's website, but I still can't find the place in control panel to toggle or connect to networks. Bluetooth drivers work well, and if I press Fn+wireless toggle key, only bluetooth turns on. Now I'm here looking for suggestions.

 

[legion_of_cheese]

Ugh the lenovo utility programs are so annoying :<. I know this for a fact from my t61 and t42-s. Basically first you have to turn on the wifi radio or what's it called with the FN+wireless toggle key. I don't know if you have a mechanical switch on the laptop you have to switch also. Then you have to use the lenovo wifi program [google it up, forgot the name]. And then you configure the profile for your wireless.

 

[typo404]

Ugh the lenovo utility programs are so annoying :<. I know this for a fact from my t61 and t42-s. Basically first you have to turn on the wifi radio or what's it called with the FN+wireless toggle key. I don't know if you have a mechanical switch on the laptop you have to switch also. Then you have to use the lenovo wifi program [google it up, forgot the name]. And then you configure the profile for your wireless.

Shouldn't it still show up under "Network Connections" window?

 

[legion_of_cheese]

Well it depends. You can check the windows wifi in the network connections to see if it is set as the default connection program [this enables the use of other programs]. And if that is unticked, then you should be able to connect with thinkvantage [that was the name right?]. If not, well then you can use windows xp wifi connector, but if I remember it can get pretty annoying setting it in windows xp.

 

[typo404]

Well it depends. You can check the windows wifi in the network connections to see if it is set as the default connection program [this enables the use of other programs]. And if that is unticked, then you should be able to connect with thinkvantage [that was the name right?]. If not, well then you can use windows xp wifi connector, but if I remember it can get pretty annoying setting it in windows xp.

I couldn't get the software working, says i don't have .NET framwork 3.0 or newer, although i've 3.5 and 4.0 installed.

I found out that I had to manually go to the folder it "installed" the drivers to and had to manually install them, the "installing" was only unpacking, different from what I did with dad's other laptop. Anyways everything works. Thanks for your help either way!

 

[legion_of_cheese]

Nice that it worked out. And no problem, even though I didn't help as much 😛.