Establish wireless networking with most Wi-Fi-enabled devices

Jun 12, 2008 08:19 GMT  ·  By

Apple has released AirPort Utility 5.3.2 for Leopard and Tiger users. Whether you own an AirPort or AirPort Express base station, or even the Goliath of wireless base stations, Time Capsule, the package available for free download today is a must-install, as it provides wireless networking compatible with most devices using Wi-Fi, including Mac, PC, iPhone and iPod touch.

AirPort Utility 5.3.2, according to Apple, delivers "wireless networking that works with most Wi-Fi enabled devices, including Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod touch, and more." When AirPort Utility 5.1 or later is opened, it automatically checks all accessible Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express base stations' firmware. If a newer (later) firmware version is available, you'll be notified and encouraged by Apple to download and install the new firmware for your base station.

AirPort Utility is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder on a computer using Mac OS X. Windows PC users can find it in Start > All Programs > AirPort.

So, how do you manually install firmware updates? Don't worry, I'm not asking you for instructions, it was just a rhetorical question. Well, first and foremost, you need to open AirPort Utility. You then select your base station and choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu. Click Update in the Summary pane of AirPort settings and install the new firmware. That's it!

To manually download and install previous versions of firmware (who knows how long Apple could take to release a fix, should the newest firmware be buggy) open AirPort Utility; from AirPort Utility menu, hold the Option key / ALT key (Ctrl for Windows XP and Vista users) and choose Check for Updates; select the version you want and start the download; select your base station and go to Manual Setup from the Base Station menu; from the Base Station menu choose Upload Firmware; select the firmware version and click OK.

Sometimes, this note appears when AirPort Utility fails to connect to the update server: "There was an error connecting to the update server. Check your network settings and try again." If so, you need to verify that you have a valid network connection to the internet. It may also be that the Apple update server was busy.

AirPort Utility 5.3.2 for Leopard will take 8.0 MB of space of your computer's hard drive. Click HERE to download.