Cannot enable Wifi adapter

Question

I have a Google Search Appliance which is really just a Poweredge 2950 II. It's running Windows 2008R2 x64. I have a Linksys WMP600N PCI card installed in the riser.

Due to current temporary housing arrangment, wired connectivity is not possible. This is for a home lab, non-production system.

BIOS is up to date running v 2.7.0. I am running the most recent driver from Linksys, V3.2.7.0. These are the Windows 7 x64 drivers. The device manager shows the WiFi card as enabled, device is working properly.

The dual onboard NICs are disabled and I have checked all the items in the cards properties except IPv4. I have uninstalled, deleted the driver and reinstalled in Safe Mode.

In the Network Connections pane it shows the card as disabled. When I right click the adapter and choose Enable, a window pops up and says:

1. Enabling
2. Enabled

after which the Network Connection pane shows the adapter as still disabled. How can I get this adapter enabled and picking up WiFi?

Solution

WLAN service is not installed by default in Windows Server 2008. In order to turn on Wireless LAN and WLAN AutoConfig service in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, go to Server Manager (in Administrator Tools). Go to Features branch and click on Add Features. Click and tick the check box for Wireless LAN Service. Complete the installation wizard to install wireless support.

I found this solution at MyDigitalLife

Comments

[DrinkJavaCodeJava]

Try seeing if the linksys wireless manager is interfering with the native wireless manager.

[Pangea]

I have not installed the Linksys wireless management, I only installed the driver through the Device Manager.

[DrinkJavaCodeJava]

Check this link superuser.com/questions/198696/wireless-adapter-wont-enable

[Pangea]

That link leads to the WLAN service which is not installed by default on Server 2008R2. After adding the 'Wireless LAN Service' feature the service is enabled and I can detect WiFi networks. Thanks.

[Admin]

I found a solution, and it involves temporarily bridging the wireless and lan connections (then unbridging). See technopaideia.blogspot.com/2013/11/…

[AlexVPerl]

I'm facing the same problem even after the WLAN feature is added, any advice here?

[Ashkan]

I also needed to go to services and manually start "WLan AutoConfig" service (which was supposed to be automatically started) and the problem went away (Windows Server 2012 R2).