The Netgear MA401 has a "Prism 2/3" chipset (depending on the revision). If it´s flashed with a late firmware (>= 1.71) it´s capable of WPA2.
There is absolutely no way using WPA2 under any Windows OS though, since noone ever wrote a driver for that.

But there´s a driver for WPA-TKIP. If that´s secure enough for your network, you can use the MA401 under Windows (2K, XP - not sure about 98)

In Linux there´s Juoni Malinen´s "HostAP" driver for Prism chipsets, that provides WPA2. It´s even present in current kernels and works flawlessly.

The only wireless chipset that I found could reliably use WPA2 on Windows 9x/ME using the stock software is Ralink RT61 (RT2561). Some others can do so via the Odyssey Client (not free). However, most of them will do WPA as mentioned.

Hi majestyk and dr_st, thanks for the good information 😀

I believe that TKIP could work for me. I also managed to locate the Odessey client SW which i notice have a 30-day trial as well. I'm going to test this out to see if it might work (at least short-term).

So i tried Odessey out and it will list the networks just fine, i can also select the WPA2 option (AES even), but it will just say "waiting for keys". I then tried to connect to a open network that i defined but it did not want to connect to that either (but using the Netgear utility it would connect to the open one).

I think i saw some reference (that i can't find anymore) that it was required to basically switch drivers from the Netgear ones into some other vendor ones (using some tricks) to enable the full support. Do you guys recollect anything similar?

(what i mostly find in general is Amiga related after this pcmcia has been reflashed to "unlock" its capabilities)

Here is a workaround, which I use a LOT with old machines when I want network connectivity through wifi. This works on any machine that has an ethernet port and which works with DHCP.

I use an external router running OpenWRT, configured to act as a bridge to my home wifi. Then on the client side of the router I connect the old machine that needs internet. I have some small routers like the WT3020 https://openwrt.org/toh/nexx/wt3020 which is about half the size of a pack of cigarettes, so it doesn't take much space. It's easy and works every time.

You can even do the router setup from the vintage machine by accessing the router's config page in a browser. For that you need to set a static setup on the machine first (on the same subnet as the router), and then when the config is done switch to DHCP.

been reading this thread ...I think if a 98/95 laptop had no RJ45 Ethernet port and couldn't use WPA2 but had a PCMCIA port I would be thinking if I wanted a migraine from trying to brute force the issue or if I wanted to simply plug in a PCMCIA Ethernet card and use that instead.

yup .. I would be going PCMCIA Ethernet every single time because fuck trying to brute force 98/95 to work with WPA2 when it never supported it.

My head hurts just reading the troubles in this thread 🤣.

Yup. Just use something like a 3c589 pcmcia card with my above trick of using an external router as wifi bridge.

Intersil Prism2 and Prism3 cards have hardware support for TKIP (WPA) but not AES (WPA2) like Atheros and other chipsets. This means the software driver must do the AES encryption job. The Linux Hostap-driver is the only one that is capable of doing this. Sadly there´s no Windows driver available - believe me. If you trick your notebook into loading any alternative driver it will either be for a different wifi-chipset and fail to work or it will be for Prism 2/3 and will work but lack WPA2.

I can upload the Prism WPA (TKIP) driver here, if you need it.

Easy guys. I understand its not without pitfalls 😀 And i have a bunch of 3com cards available that i can use (and do use), 389D, 574tx, etc. They work but are not quite portable. While i do have the MA401 (reflashed), a level1 wpc301 and one orinoco gold card and they all require an open network (but all work in W98). I was merely wishing that one of them would not require that (the MA401) 😀 Thats all.

stamasd, that not a bad idea imho. I will surely investigate that option.

majestyk wrote on 2022-01-28, 06:42:

In Linux there´s Juoni Malinen´s "HostAP" driver for Prism chipsets, that provides WPA2. It´s even present in current kernels and works flawlessly.

Have you tested this? I flashed a Linksys WPC11 V2.5 with 1.1.1/1.7.4 and 1.1.1/1.8.2 to no avail. It sees my network but is unable to connect, and in dmesg hostap_cs reports attempting to connect but failing out with "link is not ready" over and over.

Yes, I have been using Prism 2 (2.5) cards for decades with WPA2-PSK and even WPA2 EAP-TLS and still do today on my Debian and Mint machines.
Sometimes (in some versions) the Linux "Network Manager" is unable to establish a WPA2 connection. I remove Network-Manager in those cases and use "WPA-GUI" instead.
(You have to edit "etc/network/interfaces" manually then for the IP-settings and create your own "wpa_supplicant.conf".)
Also have a look at what "lsmod" says. Sometimes the Hermes or Orinoco driver are loaded and need to be blacklisted so the system loads the "hostap_cs" driver module.

Firmware 1.7.4 and 1.8.2 are 100% capable of WPA2.

majestyk wrote on 2022-02-17, 17:36:

Yes, I have been using Prism 2 (2.5) cards for decades with WPA2-PSK and even WPA2 EAP-TLS and still do today on my Debian and M […]
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Yes, I have been using Prism 2 (2.5) cards for decades with WPA2-PSK and even WPA2 EAP-TLS and still do today on my Debian and Mint machines.
Sometimes (in some versions) the Linux "Network Manager" is unable to establish a WPA2 connection. I remove Network-Manager in those cases and use "WPA-GUI" instead.
(You have to edit "etc/network/interfaces" manually then for the IP-settings and create your own "wpa_supplicant.conf".)
Also have a look at what "lsmod" says. Sometimes the Hermes or Orinoco driver are loaded and need to be blacklisted so the system loads the "hostap_cs" driver module.

Firmware 1.7.4 and 1.8.2 are 100% capable of WPA2.

Yep, got it working on Debian Stretch with wpa_supplicant. This is awesome. 😀

Thanks!