How to restore Airport Extreme settings?

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Level 1

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How to restore Airport Extreme settings?

Hello, all-

Total Newbie here. Still trying to figure out what a Mac really is and what is does. Too many years with a PC, I guess.

Anyway, seems my Airport settings just "vanished". I tried to restore with Time Machine, but can't find a thing. I wish to restore all the security settings, etc as they took some time (and much help form tech support) to set up so as to be compatible with an older Windows machine and an Xbox360.

Can someone please tell me how to find, locate and then restore Airport Extreme settings, etc? I am totally stumped--and floored that tech support is only 2 hours per day. Geez, even Dell is open 24/7!

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Jan 7, 2008 8:52 PM

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Answer 1

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imac007

Level 3

845 points

Jan 7, 2008 9:35 PM in response to jws3

Have you ever connected to the internet with your computer?
Apple support is available 12/7. Ask for Wireless Support.
Dell needs it 24/7, believe me.
I suspect you must have been able to connect to the internet because you are looking for settings in Time Machine.
However, you have an airport extreme card in your computer that can connect to wifi.
What kind of wifi are you trying to connect to wirelessly and is the wireless network not available in the airport menu?
The only wireless setting you would normally store on the computer would be what network you normally connect to and it may save your password in a keychain if you need one and have chosen to tell it to remember the password in the keychain.
Other parts of your post seem to indicate that you possibly had some kind of network security settings with a windows machine and an Xbox 360.
This sounds like you have an airport extreme base station.
If you do, there are no settings on the computer for the configuration of the base station unless you saved a configuration file originally to your computer.
The configuration settings you set up when you configure an airport extreme base station on stored on the base station itself.
Perhaps it simply needs to be unplugged and powered up again after a brief time - 2 minutes or so.
This will allow the configuration to be reloaded and reestablished on the base station.
If the configuration has been corrupted you may need to set it up again.
Once it is set up perhaps you could save a copy of the configuration to your desktop to help restore it if you have the same problem in the future.

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Answer 2

jws3 Author

Level 1

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Jan 7, 2008 9:47 PM in response to imac007

Thank you very much for responding. Very much appreciated.

In my haste--and growing frustration-- I likely omitted various details. I've had the MAc for about 2 month and suddenly lost wireless printing and then the security settings just changed. I do not know why. I had a lesser setting, WEP, to accomodate an older Dell and an Xbox360. Took a full HOUR with Apple to figure out how to do it. Seems if one holds down the "option" key in the Airport utility one can select radio settings other than "802.11n". If you pick .11b/g, then previously unavailable options like WEP show up. Pick one and the older units can connect, albeit after a laborious (to me) process of figuring out what an SSID is and then being told what the hex equivalent to my password is. Now THAT was fun....... So much for "easy to use"!

My frustration was in using Time Machine. I thought that it was like the old "system restore" and would bring everything back to how it was. Not so much. I was hoping it could reset things to as they were.

Before I forget-- How do I save a configuration to avoid this in the future?

I like Apple so far, but a few things really irk me- The total lack of printed documentation, a crappy keyboard (where are the dedicated, pg up/down/end/backspace, etc keys?) and to short customer service hours.

Between your post and one final search, which finally reminded me of the way to find the other bands, etc I was able to get everything back to working as it was. Now, if only they would get the wireless disk back up in order. That's half the reason I bought this thing!

Thanks again- Much appreciated.

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Answer 3

imac007

Level 3

845 points

Jan 7, 2008 10:11 PM in response to jws3

When you are in a page, press on the space bar and it pages down unless there is some other function for space, such as making a space, at the time.
Try playing with holding down on the command key and using the up/dn/right/left arrows.
Also, the option key with the same arrows.
The left and right more-so in a word processor or in the reply field here.
The option key also works with the left/right keys when there is a left/right navigation bar at the bottom.
Open Airport Utility in the Utilities folder and connect to your base station.
Then under the file menu there are save and save as menu choices.
You will also see that there is an import.
This allows you to save the configuration and save it easily to another base station, if you have one at another location, like another residence or the office.
You can simply select what you want to restore in Time Machine and click on Restore.
If you need to restore the entire system you just go to Utilities on the Install disk and choose the option to restore from the Time Machine backup for the entire system, if you haven't excluded anything key.
If you have a wireless issue you can post here after apple's hours in the discussions>Digital Life section>Airport area with the specifics of what you want to do.

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