I ended up finding that all I really needed to do (besides entering the hex WEP key) was to enter a machine name on the internet options.

My Linksys access point/router requires a distinct machine name before it will hand you an IP address via DHCP, apparently; DHCP works fine now.

Incidentally, I did not have to enter a $ before my WEP key, and this was BEFORE getting the software update.

In the end I remembered that I had the IPnetShareX (Natd software router) set-up and disabling this solved all my problems - now it works great!

PowerBook with Mac OS X 10.4.2 and one Airport Express using WAP connected to a corporate Windoze network.

My only goal was wireless networking. No USB printer sharing. No music. Three hours down the tubes.

I coaxed the AX to grab an address via DHCP from the server on the corporate Winpooch LAN, but I was unable to get AX to serve IP addresses via its own DHCP server including passing through the DNS servers' addresses.

After getting an IP address from the AX's DHCP server, I was able to ping the gateway, the corporate DHCP server, and the AX only by IP address from the PowerBook, but not by name as no DNS servers were made known to the PowerBook. I was also unable to ping a well connected entity such as cisco.com via its IP address; so, the AX was not forwarding anything to the gateway although it identified it as one. The PowerBook never picked up the DNS servers' addresses when AX served an IP address.

My solution was to turn the AX into an 802.11g only bridge. The PowerBook has two network ports: wired Ethernet and wireless Airport. I shut off its Ethernet port and turned on only its wireless Airport. Because the AX was merely a conduit, i.e. a wireless bridge, TCP/IP configuration was completely under the PowerBook's control.

I was able to tell the PowerBook to ask the Winpooch DHCP server for an IP address through the AX bridge, and that worked well. I did have to set the DNS servers' addresses by hand, but after that the PowerBook runs almost as fast as it does when it is wired into the corporate LAN. By the way, I also had to set the DNS servers' addresses by hand when the PowerBook is wired into that LAN.

That LAN has multiple T3s going to the net, and surfing was subjectively as fast through the AX as it is when wired. Also, tunneling an X Window System session through Mac OS X's ssh client from the net through the corporate LAN and the AX worked well enough to be usable although noticeably slower than when the same is done locally.

I see nothing but woe ahead of me as I still have to configure another AX to serve several IP addresses via the AX's own DHCP server, and turning that one into a bridge won't be enough, but maybe some of the experiences above will come in handy.

ok, using the $ preix worked, and its now conected, but alas, further problems persist!!!
its connected, like i said, but reboot the mac and it doesn't connect again, it defaults to the open network i spoke of before, not ideal at all. It seems the problem is adding the WEP to the keychain, now before anyone says so, this is what happens:

i used the assistant to enter the key originally, and it recognises it as a WEP network (this is not changeable, its the way the LIVEBOX does it, WPA would be preffered, but is unavailable, ONLY WEP) and when i reboot, click on the Wireless menu thing on the main MAC toolbar, selct the Wanadoo connection from the list, and it brings up a box saying enter password - fine, however the authentication method in the drop down is set to WPA, and cannot be changed to WEP, so no matter how i enter the password it wont work. This is really stupid and i can't belive that MACs are so damn fidgety, this particular menu is the ONLY way to get the key added to the keychain that i can see.

They're supposed to be a real alternative to Windows, but to be fair, if you need a complete MAC network to get it running i stand by my original claim...

macs are nothing but fancy handbags for the rich and ignorant.

ok, maybe not, my g/f uses it for a lot of photoshop processing which im told is better in mac than windows (i run Photoshop CS2 on my laptop with NO problems but i'll take their word there's something special about macs that mean she HAD to spend an absolute fortune on a crap 1.25 processor).

Ok, my question is...

Anyone know how to manually add a WEP key to a keychain, using a text editor or similar tool?

This is the only way i'm going to get this working for her unless she never reboots her machine, and thats just goddamn silly if you ask me, the GUI is just lacking the options i need.

Help!!

Try starting again, from scratch, just keep it simple, and use the assistants wherever possible. I found the best way to keep settings saved was to use the drop down menu from the main apple toolbar that represents your airport settings for your airport card, once you have your base station set up correctly, use WPA if at all possible, and remember, its only not working cos of something simple, its ALWAYS something simple. (i recommend reading the mnual to trouble shoot set up problems most of the hints in this blog are actually well documented by apple themselves) I assure you that updating firmware etc etc may help in the long run with glitches, but it aint gonna magically fix any set up problems.

good luck - let us know how it goes mate.

DEATH

This blog is what gave me the ideas to solve my problems with the airpor express too.  I have an XP Pro laptop with a Netgear dg834G wireless router.  When I used the Setup Assistant, I follow the process through to the end, then the yellow light would flash on the AE and my laptop would no longer connect to my wireless network.  One of the problems I found was that the WEP security on the AE only comes in 40 or 128 bit.  My router had been set to 64 bit, so I changed it to 128 bit.  This is what I did to successfully set up my system:

1.  install AE

2. install software

3.  manually set up AE with Admin Utility.  AE didn't appear with admin utility, so use Setup Assistant to the point where AE is recognised.  Go back to Admin Utility and scan, find AE. set up and hard code an IP address, subnet mask, and servers.  setup 128 bit password (no extra characters!).

That was all, it took all of 10 minutes after reading this blog.  I had spent about 3 hours before hand.  Very frustrating.

I hope this helped, thanks to everyone that posted.

Here's my issue: our new apartment is setup in such a way that I get no signal from the WRT54G in our bedroom. So, I bought (big mistake!) a WRE54Gv1 (range extender) which is a pain in the ass to setup, but if I restore Factory Defaults on the WRT, then connect the WRE, I can connect it to the WRT and extend my network. But, the moment I add the APX to the network, the WRE drops off and flashes red.

I am at my wit's end.

FYI: DHCP and no security (at this point).