Older Airport Express, Airport Utility

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Level 1

18 points

Older Airport Express, Airport Utility

I have an older (about 2005-2006 vintage) Airport Express that is used as a satellite base station (network extender?). This old Express works flawlessly to extend a household / home office network and to allow for a workgroup printer to be connected in the office.

The "mothership" is currently an aging (2004 vintage) round white Airport Extreme, which has been having problems. We just bought a refurbished late-model Airport Express from Apple direct to replace the old Extreme as the "mothership". (The current "mothership" is connected via Ethernet cable to a DSL modem, so it is our network hub and our gateway to the internet.)

I'm thinking seriously about reconstituting the LAN situation; shut everything down, disconnect the old Extreme, and plug-in the new Express and build a new LAN with new network ID, password, etc. to save time and headache. No decision has been made yet. Nothing has been done. Problem: the "old" Airport Express is vital to what we do. We need to incorporate the "old" Express into the "new" network.

I tried launching the Airport Admin Utility on one of our newer (2012/2013) computers today, and the Utility cannot access either the "old" Extreme or the "old" Express. The Utility says these devices are not supported by this version of the Utility software. If I do go ahead and rebuild the LAN with a new "mothership" ("new" Express), network ID and password, how do I program the "old" Express to join the "new" LAN?

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), late-2012 Core i5, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HD

Posted on Feb 25, 2015 1:39 PM

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Answer 1

Walt_Atwood Author

Level 1

18 points

Mar 1, 2015 6:04 PM in response to Bob Timmons

After consulting with AppleCare today, I am closing down this particular conversation.

After talking on the phone with an AppleCare WiFi specialist, and conducting several tests, we arrived at the conclusion that the "old" Airport Express base station was indeed functional (we were able to get a Dymo LabelWriter printer to print a label while connected to the Express), so it is now clear that the Express works.

The specifics of what the problems are with the Express, and the assertions made in this conversation about it, are no longer valid.

I will start another thread to discuss other issues concerning the "old" Express.

Thank you for your participation.

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Answer 2

Feb 25, 2015 2:11 PM in response to Walt_Atwood

I tried launching the Airport Admin Utility on one of our newer (2012/2013) computers today, and the Utility cannot access either the "old" Extreme or the "old" Express. The Utility says these devices are not supported by this version of the Utility software

You will need....or be able to borrow......a Mac running the Leopard (10.5.x) or Snow Leopard (10.6.x) operating system, or a PC with AirPort Utility installed on the device, to be able to administer the older AirPort that you have.

If I do go ahead and rebuild the LAN with a new "mothership" ("new" Express), network ID and password, how do I program the "old" Express to join the "new" LAN?

Unfortunately, you are asking about trying to mix the old with the new....and this is not going to work very well at all.

What you ask can be accomplished only if you have a Mac or PC that meets the requirements mentioned just above......AND....the older AirPort Express must be connected to the new Express using an Ethernet cable at all times. If you want to establish a wireless connection between the AirPorts, then you will need another new AirPort Express to do so.

All things considered, it is time to give serious consideration to replacing all the old AirPorts with new models. That way, you know that your current Mac will be able to set up and configure all of your newer AirPorts.

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Answer 3

Walt_Atwood Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 26, 2015 5:43 AM in response to Bob Timmons

I appreciate your candor and insights. So far, your assessment appears to be accurate to an unnerving degree.

For several years, I have been using the "old" Airport Express as both a "network extender" and as a network printer hub. The "old" Express' USB port is plugged into a Dymo LabelWriter and the Ethernet port is plugged into an HP workgroup Laserjet. The now-decommissioned round white Airport Extreme was connected to an Epson printer via USB. So, if I eliminate the "old" Express, that would eliminate at least one of my printers, probably two. The notion of connecting the two Expresses together via Ethernet cable would be self-defeating.

I dreamed up an idea last night and I wanted to run it by you:

Here's the current home-office rig as it exists since I installed the "new" refurbished Airport Express as the "mothership":

Internet (DSL) > DSL Modem (a D-Link) > Ethernet cable > "new" Airport Express (new LAN WiFi hub; plugged into Epson printer) > (WiFi connection to computers and other Airport Express) "old" Airport Express (network extender, plugged into HP workgroup printer and Dymo LabelWriter; neither printer is working since the "new" Express was installed and its new WiFi LAN was created last night)

Here's my idea...

The D-Link DSL modem is actually not just a modem. It also offers WiFi capability. Rather than reward Apple by wasting money on another Airport, I thought of cutting my losses by activating the D-Link modem's WiFi to make it the "mothership" (network hub), and then make both of the Airport Extemes ("new" and "old") into subsidiary network extenders on the D-Link's new network.

If I did this and cranked up the security, could I get both Express devices to work on the same network, and restore my printers to working order as before?

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Answer 4

Feb 26, 2015 6:29 AM in response to Walt_Atwood

Regarding your idea.....

You do not mention whether you want the Expresses to connect to the D-Link modem/router using wireless, but I assume that you do.

The new and old AirPort Express devices might be able to be configured to wirelessly "join" the wireless network provided by the D-Link modem router, so the printers could connect to the Expresses as they do now.

The only way to know whether this will really work or not would to try it by resetting both Expresses back to default settings and setting them up again.

I think you may be forgetting that you will still have a problem trying to configure the older Express though, since you will need a different version of AirPort Utility to do so for that device. Do you have a Mac running Leopard, Snow Leopard, or a PC to configure the older Express?

Neither Express will be able to "extend" the wireless signal provided by the D-Link modem/router, since Apple's "extend" feature is proprietary.........it only works among Apple devices. So, the Expresses will not provide any extended wireless signal coverage for the D-Link modem/router network.

IF....you want to use the new Express as it is already set up now.....AND....you want a second Express to wirelessly extend the signal from the first Express......AND....you want to be able to configure and administer each AirPort Express using the 10.9.5 operating system that you have......there is a solution:

Replace the old AirPort Express with another new AirPort Express.

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Answer 5

Walt_Atwood Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 26, 2015 2:55 PM in response to Bob Timmons

OOUR COMPUTING HARDWARE:

late-2012 Core i5 iMac, running MacOS 10.9.5

late-2013 MacBook Pro Retina 13, running MacOS 10.9.5

iPad Mini, running iOS 8

late-2003 G4 iMac, running MacOS 10.4.11 (this has the "old" Airport Utility installed; it can talk to the "old" Express)

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Answer 6

Feb 26, 2015 3:20 PM in response to Walt_Atwood

Thanks for the info.

Reconfiguring both AirPort Express devices to try to get them to "join" the D-Link wireless network is going to be quite a bit of work.....with no guarantee that this will be successful.

I do not have a Mac running 10.4.11, so will not be able to help on the setup of the older AirPort Express other than provide some general guidelines from memory.

If you decide to try this, please let us know on your results.

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