Airport Utility 6.0 where are Printers settings? Disks settings are very limited.

Hi,

yes, it seems the once powerful, feature rich Airport Utility has been stripped of many "advanced" features. Here are some of them (from the comments over at macrumors regarding a story on the update):

- Dynamic Global Hostname (i.e. Update DynDns service with your current IP)

- Configuration Profiles

- Can't see list of wireless and DHCP clients

- No IPv6 configuration

- No more logs and stats

- No multicast rate

- No transmit power settings

- No wide channels

- ...

Apple, please. You can't just remove all those options and replace the great and very useful UI of the old Airport Utility with this joke of a configuration software. Please go back to version 5.6 and continue from their.

People rely on the above listed features and have bought an Airport Extreme or Airport Express, because those products were superior to the competition.

Hope somebody listens.

@feju is correct. I just finished verifying that Airport Utility v5.6 works fine with both g and n Airport devices.

BUT PLEASE NOTE: According to Apple you must FIRST install Airport Utility v6.0 in order to access and install Firmware upgrade 7.6.1. Do that first. THEN install Airport Utility v5.6 and use it instead if you prefer.

My catch-all list of Airport 6.0 & Firmware 7.6.1 problems:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've compiled a catch-all list of problems and changes with Airport Utility version 6.0 and FW 7.6.1. Some of the items may be relevant to this thread.

THE PROBLEMS WITH AIRPORT UTILITY 6 AND FIRMWARE 7.6.1:

Introduction: If you find AirPort Utility v6.0 too limiting or strange, you can ALSO install AirPort Utility v5.6, released alongside v6.0, to maintain all your previous capabilities. It works fine with both Airport g and n devices.

PLEASE NOTE: According to Apple you must FIRST install Airport Utility v6.0 in order to access and install Firmware upgrade 7.6.1. Do that first. THEN install Airport Utility v5.6 and use it instead if you prefer.

1) According to Apple's documentation, Airport Utility version 6.0 is ONLY for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It is NOT for 10.6 Snow Leopard. If you accidentally installed v6, you'll have to dig around in Apple - Support - Downloads for the previous relevant version for your devices and OS version. Here is the relevant page:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1483

2) The HELP for Airport Utility has been updated. When you first access it you may well be looking at the old Help. It is supposed to update itself spontaneously over the Internet. It took a couple minutes in my case. Be sure you are looking at the NEW Help before you start using it. One way to tell is that the list of help topics essentially doubles from what there used to be. Also, the very first topic in the NEW Help should read:

"Set up an AirPort device > Set up a new AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule"

3) The HELP has some WRONG information. Here we go:

3a) There is NO "Enable Guest Network" setting. You CANNOT create a guest network or name it or give it any settings. Why this is still listed in Help, I have no idea. Why the setting is gone: This is most likely because the technology behind guest networks, WPS, has been thoroughly CRACKED in the wild. Google "WPS cracked" for lots of documentation of the situation. It won't be resolved soon.

3b) I can't find any 'Setup Assistant". Everything is now manual. This is not to say that there isn't a setup assistant that appears when you FIRST set up your Airport device. I don't know.

4) After installing Airport Utility v6.0, there is no indication of the accompanying firmware update until you decide to run the new version. Even then, you have to click on the big icon of your Airport device and notice an 'Update' button about halfway down the popup window. You then have to assume that this button is telling you to update your firmware.

5) After you update your Airport device's firmware, you may well discover an ERROR subwindow popping up inside Airport Utility that says:

"An error occurred while updating the firmware. -6721"

Don't panic! All you need to do is go into your Wi-Fi settings, either in your menubar or the Network preferences, and turn OFF Wi-Fi, then turn ON Wi-Fi again. This is part of a long standing bug in Lion's Wi-Fi with which I bet you are already familiar, certainly up through Lion version 10.7.2.

6) Miscellaneous changes in Airport Utility 6:

6a) The keyboard command to manually change your Airport devices settings is GONE. You have to click the little 'Edit' button after clicking on the big icon for your device.

6b) There is no longer any summary window for your Airport device. You have to instead click on the big "Internet" icon for related data, then click on the big icon for your Airport device for local settings data.

6c) There is no longer any HELP advising users to EXPORT their settings. (The Help only talks about Import of settings). BE SURE TO EXPORT YOUR NEW SETTINGS! I did this immediately after both updates.

6d) MAC address filtering for Airport devices is GONE.

6e) All references to IPV6 anywhere are GONE. I have to assume the IPV6 settings are now entirely working and entirely automatic. Let's hope so.

6f) Signal and Noise data and graphs are GONE. Use Apple's Wi-Fi Diagnostics app instead. Apple have hidden it here in Lion:

/System/Library/CoreServices/W-Fi Diagnostics

6g) In order to access the menu items in Airport Utility, you have to first click on the big icon for your Airport device.

--> No doubt there are other changes, oddities or bugs related to these changes. But this is what I came up with during a cursory strafing of the software.

The Bevis and Buttheadification of Apple continues.

download airport utility from here... in addition to having airport utility 6.0 (so you have both in the utility folder.) http://www.apple.com/support/airport/ it is located on the right side.

Message was edited by: Carlo TD

Apple continues the qwest to dumb down all their devices so a 2 year old can use them, LAME! At least have a simple and advanced mode!

no the thing is, it is easier for technical support to access the computer or determine where there is a problem, when they are talking to a person that does not know terminology or networking.

<...>

6d) MAC address filtering for Airport devices is GONE.

<...>

MAC address control is still available, just is a different location.

Click to enlarge image

Having airport utility 6.0, I am being told to press the manual setup button which is no longer visible. I am trying to set up remote access to the USB hard drive. Can anyone help guide me through the process in 6.0?

Munas, when I have looked there both boxes are ticked. Where would my family access my hard drive? What settings need to be set in version 6.0?

Ok, I have downloaded v5.6 which seemed to show the buttons/names mentioned in discussions. Have you any advice on the best way for windows 7 OS users to access airport extreme hard drive?