Using the USB method to transfer your wireless security settings from one computer to another is an okay method if the setup is relatively simple, but the second you throw the process a curveball it can fail miserably. The good news is that you don’t actually need to set things up that way—you can do it manually. Look in your router’s user guide to find out the default IP address of the router, and from a computer that’s hardwired to the router with an Ethernet cable, surf to that IP address with the browser of your choice. You’ll see a configuration menu for the router. This is where you can make it all happen.

The keys to wireless network security:
1. Change your router’s default password…any hacker can guess the defaults in ten seconds.
2. Disable Universal Plug and Play so rogue applications don’t open up holes automatically on your router for bad guys out on the net.
3. Disable WLAN administration to prevent someone from trying to access your router from the Internet.
4. On the wireless menu, enable encryption on your wireless signal to prevent people from snooping through your wireless traffic, from out in the parking lot…use WPA encryption, and choose a good unguessable password, preferably lengthy and with both upper and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and possibly punctuation.
5. Don’t use a network name that identifies your address, as that’s a flag saying where the computer gear is.

Once you’ve set up the router, it should be as simple as going to your wireless computers, searching for wireless networks, and when you find yours, try connecting to it and enter the password exactly as you entered it into the router.

If you’re stuck for a really secure password, you can get a unique random 64-character password from our friend Steve Gibson’s password generator, at http://www.grc.com/password/ — it’s a nice long one, so you may want to save THAT to the USB key and cut and paste it on the wireless computer.

One of the nice things about Linksys products is that they come with software that theoretically makes it very easy to set up a wireless network. The downside is that when things go wrong it’s sometimes not so clear how to proceed. And if you’re asked if it’s okay to install something and you weren’t expecting an install, say NO!

The big trick here is to determine what type of security — if any — you’re using to secure the connection. If you have a computer that’s connected to the wireless router via Ethernet cable, you’ll want to surf to the router’s built in configuration webpage. You can find out what the IP address of the router is by going to Start, clicking on run, and typing “cmd”, and then when the command line window pops up type “ipconfig”. In the results, look for the line that says “gateway”, and that will be the IP address you’ll enter into the browser’s URL bar. If you get asked for a password, enter the username and password listed in the router’s user manual (usually by default it’s username “admin” and password is blank or “admin”, but during your initial setup process you may have changed that. Then look for the security section of the router’s menu system, and find out whether your wireless encryption is turned off, set to WEP or WPA…if it’s secured, you’ll want to make sure your key or passphrase is the same one you’re trying to use when connecting your wireless computers, and that you’re using the same type of encryption at both ends.