Designing Wireless Network Policies

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Administrators can define policy settings to help secure wireless network configurations for both the IEEE 802.11 configuration and the IEEE 802.1X authentication engine. If you use Group Policy for wireless networking, the policy settings that are defined in the GPO that affects a specific computer take precedence over the user-defined settings. The type of network that you use also affects precedence. You can design wireless network policies for three types of networks:

  • Access point (infrastructure). In this type of network, wireless devices with radio network adapters, such as a portable computer or personal digital assistant, connect to wireless access points.

  • Computer-to-computer (ad hoc). In this type of network, wireless devices connect to each other directly instead of through wireless access points.

  • Any available network access point preferred. When you select this option, a connection to an access point wireless network is always attempted first, if one is available. If an access point network is not available, a connection to a computer-to-computer wireless network is attempted.

The wireless networking technologies that are included in Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 support the IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.1X standards for wireless communications. For complete information about deploying these technologies, see "Deploying a Wireless LAN" in Deploying Network Services of this kit*.* For step-by-step information about creating wireless network policies, see "Wireless Networking" in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.