On Wednesday we posted about Intel's latest driver release. We have since installed the new driver on some of our machines and have some tips for those of you that aren't system admins.



While the download patches vulnerabilities, it isn't really a patch; it's a full-blown driver install with the Intel PROSet connection software included in 32/64Bit flavors. Thus 129MB.

Now lets say you install that download on, say, an IBM ThinkPad T43. Did you update the ThinkVantage Access Connections software first? If not, then the ThinkVantage software might not recognize the new driver and it could lead to a system crash. If you do have the latest IBM software then the Intel driver works but there seem to be a few small issues. Or at least on one machine the toggling on/off of the Wi-Fi radio leads to a maximum connection time of 5 minutes. Booting with the radio on to begin with works fine.

We've also seen cases where updating the IntelPROSet software makes the software lose all of your existing favorite networks and it forgets your existing WEP/WPA keys.

Currently Dell and IBM are providing driver version 9.0.4.13 for the systems we checked. Those vendor driver updates were released in May and June and it's likely that both companies will have the new Intel driver available soon. In the meantime as there are no exploits in the wild, and unless you're ready to spend some time troubleshooting your system, you might want to wait for your laptop's manufacturer to provide an update. For the rest of you, have fun!