A neighbor brought his Dell laptop over and when we tried to connect it to my wireless LAN (Verizon/Westell 327W), after I enter the "network security key" for the WAP, it asks for a user name and password. (Windows Security Network Authorization).
This is new behavior. It does not occur when I connect my smartphone or tablet.
And I have no idea what username/password I should use! It rejects the user name/password of the Westell.
I checked the wireless set-up of the Westell and it hasn't changed: plain old WEP.
Any suggestions/explanations? Is this caused by Windows 7?
My guess is that this is something like Windows home networking wanting the password for a computer to join. Maybe the Dell is trying to join you home Windows network, or maybe something at your home is trying to join the home network defined on the Dell.
In any case, this is probably not a wireless network issue.
The alert pops just after I've entered the wireless key.
The LAN workgroup does not require a password or a username. The Dell is apparently trying to join my LAN workgroup; as they have the same name, I wonder why it's not accepted immediately.
I should point out that when I disable the Dell's wireless and plug in an Ethernet cable, the Dell has immediate access to the LAN (i.e., it sees the other devices) and to the Internet.
So I still think it has something to do with the wreless.
checked the wireless set-up of the Westell and it hasn't changed: plain old WEP.
Going tangential for a moment, you really, really need to change over to WPA or WPA2, using AES (CCMP). WEP just isn't secure, at best it keeps an honest person from connecting to an otherwise open access point.
People have said how easy it is to get the password of a WEP device, but then they talk about a Linux live CD and other penetration test tools so I don't know really how easy it is.
There are many tools out there so you don't need to be familiar with Linux, case in point here is a video of a guy breaking WEP using a Windows 7 machine using tools which are primary GUI based.