Airport Utility for Windows

The older AirPort Admin Utility does not work on Vista. You will need the newer AirPort Utility (v5+). Unfortunately, this version is not available from Apple as a download as it came on the installation CD with the new 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn).

There is a workaround floating around the Discussions area to extract the AirPort Utility from one of the utilities' updates. I don't remember the steps off-hand, but if you do a search on "Vista" & "AirPort Utility" you should get several hits.

The default password is "public" (without the quotation marks). You can access the base station if you know the ip address of the airport express. When you open the airport admin utility, click "Other" at the bottom of the windows. A small pop-up window will appear, and you should enter the IP Address of the airport express in the first space, and the password "Public" in the second. The default password for the Airport Express is in the 10.0.1.x range, where x is a number between 1 and 200.

Extracting the Airport Utility

1. You will need a program called Less_MSIerables. Google.
2. Download it to your desktop and Unzip that file (Should end up in your unzipped file folder)
3. Now, download Airport Extreme software.
4. Run
5. A window will open that states "This Update requires AirPort Version 5.0 to be Installed".
Don't exit from this window.
6. <Vista> Instead, go Start ->start search and type in %temp%. Enter. <XP: use Run instead of Search>
7. You will see a file folder called something like IXP050.TMP (the number varies)
8. Open it.
9. You should be able to see a file called APsetup.msi.
10. Click your mouse on it, but don't open it.
11. At the top of the window you will see the address of this file. If not, click the yellow file folder in the address bar.
Copy that address.
12. Next go to the folder in which you saved the unzipped version of Less_Msierables
13. In a subfolder you will see a file called Lessmsi.
14. Right-click on this file

<Vista Only>

15. Go to properties.
16. Go to compatability.
17. Run in XP Mode
18. Apply
19. OK
20. Again right-click on icon.
21. Run as administrator.

<Vista and XP>
22. In the window that pops up, paste the address of Apsetup.msi
23. You will see a list of many files, but one of the first will be APUtil.exe.
24. Extract this file to a location that you can easily find.
25. A file folder will appear with a name like cab#APSetup.cab1
26. Open that file folder and you will see a file APUtil.exe
27. Click on that file, and the admin utility will open. You should be able to find your airport device.

I suggest that you move this file to your desktop for easy access.

Okay, I get all the way to step 5 and I'm stuck. I find nothing when I do a search for anything IXP*.TMP. I also search for APsetup.msi with no luck. This is on Vista.

NOTE: I didn't exit from the "This update requires AirPort Version 5.0 to be installed" window.

Thanks for any assistance.

Okay, I was able to find the APSetup.msi after some heavy searching and reading mis* text documents that were created once I launched the Airport update. It was under C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\IXP124.TMP\APSetup.msi.