It seems we were a bit ahead of the curve on Microsoft's "by-design" Windows XP SP 1 WiFi quirk. This article at Wired details the myriad problems users are experiencing with Microsoft's Wireless Zero Configuration service. The service is at the root of a few rather irritating connectivity problems, namely those when connections drop unexpectedly and without good reason. Many users find their connections dropped despite being a few feet from an Access Point. Others have noticed that the connections drop at regularly scheduled intervals. The problem has a number of symptoms, largely determined by ancillary settings such as whether or not to connect automatically to non-preferred networks. The problem as addressed here is limited to Windows XP SP1, though we've seen the problem on betas of SP2.
Questions about this problem come in to Ars rather often, and we're pleased to say that the fix that we reported on a few months ago works for the overwhelming majority of users who write in (see the post for full details), and it's much easier (and permanent) than stopping and starting the Wireless Zero Configuration service. If you're running Windows XP SP1 and experiencing rather common connectivity drops when you know that the signal is rather strong, you may want to check this out.
News source: Ars Technica
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