Picked up my first netbook this afternoon, and I couldn’t wait to get it home and jump on the net and start downloading all the applications I enjoy. Right out out of the box, I was impressed with the overall size. It was not too big, and not too small, it was just right for portability. The build quality is good for a netbook in this price range. Once I got it setup, I quickly noticed that the wireless LAN light wasn’t on. After hitting up the booklet that was included with the Wind, it mentioned to click a quick launch icon. I checked the programs installed on the machine and couldn’t find anything labeled that as a program or a service. I noticed that the function key had a matching icon to the missing LED on the netbook chassis, and once activated the wireless started working. I thought that MSI could have done a better job in documentation to let you know that it comes disabled out of the box, and to activate it you have to use a function command. I was checking everywhere including the device manager, and it was reporting the internal card was enabled with no problems.

I thought I was set, I jumped on the net, and headed straight for Windows Update, and downloaded the most recent security fixes for service pack three. All of the sudden, without warning after the reboot for the updates, the internet dropped out again. This time to never recover. The function command had the LED lit up, and device manager was reporting that the card was enabled. Weirder yet, I was able to pull an IP from the router with the “ipconfig” command, but still no internet. (This is a fresh install of WinXP SP3) I checked the windows firewall settings, and didn’t see anything being blocked in that list out of the ordinary. Lastly, I turned to Google, and performed a search for possible similar problems people may have experienced. That is when I came across this page. It discussed someone having an exact experience where they actually took their Wind to a computer store to have the wireless LAN card settings looked at. Turns out that MSI let these netbook’s out into the wild with Windows Wireless Zero Configuration utility installed and activated, even though they included 3rd party wireless network utilities installed on the same machine. Looks like the fix is to disable the “Let Windows manage my wireless networks” option within the Windows Wireless Zero Configuration utility, and then download the latest driver from MSI’s support site. Lastly, looks like you edit a .ini file associated with the wireless card driver, and your good to go. Let’s hope that MSI releases a patch/fix in the short future that helps less “techy” folks fix their wireless settings themselves. I will update if this works for me, since I am current throwing this post up while my download from MSI is downloading in the background. Since MSI is a Taiwan based company, their website downloads are super slow, and this particular file is 35MB.