Enable WLAN On Windows Server 2012

In one of the previous article, we understood the steps to Installing Windows Server 2012 for SharePoint 15.  In this article, we will inch a step closer by enabling WLAN and in the next article we will actually get started with SharePoint 15.

Step 1 – Enabling WAN Windows Feature

WAN may be disabled by default as a Server machine may not always require WAN and you may want to enable it. To enable wireless, we first have to enable the feature.  To enable WAN, right-click on Start Menu (or you can choose to use Server Manager) and select Programs and Features.

Once the Programs and Features window appears, click on Turn Windows Features On or Off to get more advanced System Options and Settings

This will bring you to the “Add Roles and Features Wizard“.  Click on Next button to navigate through the wizard

Choose Role-Based or features-based installation to configure a single server.  If you are configuring this for a remote server, you need to select the next available option as shown in the screenshot below

Select the destination server which in this case will be your own machine.

We are not selecting any roles so click next on the Select Server Roles screen.  Otherwise you can enable this feature for specific roles such as Administrators, Developers, or for your AD groups.

On the Select Features screen scroll down to find Wireless LAN service, select it.

Save and close anything you were working on and select Restart the destination computer automatically and then click Install.  When selecting any remote server, please note, you need to have administrative rights to have it successfully executed.

After your server reboots, you’ll be informed of the installation status and you can close the wizard.

Step 2. Update your wireless drivers (optional)

You may or may not have to update your wireless drivers. If the Operating System still does not allow you to connect to a Wireless Network even after adding the feature, then you probably need to update the wireless drivers even if your wireless NIC is displayed properly in Device Manager.

To update your wireless driver right-click on the start menu, choose Device manager and locate your network card in the device manager. Choose Update Driver software.

Choose browse my computer for driver software(make sure to have copied the drivers to a folder somewhere you can access, like C: or USB drive).    Point the wizard to the location where you have copied the drivers to complete the search process.

Step 3. Connect to a wireless network

This is the easiest step and you would have done it if you are using Windows 8.  You can follow through the steps if this is new to you.  Now that we have wireless working we need to connect to a wireless network, click on the wireless icon in the system tray and choose Connect.  It will prompt you for your Wireless LAN password in the next step and you should be ready to go!

So that was to enable Wireless LAN on your Windows Server 2012

Krunal Patel

I am SharePoint Senior Developer and currently working on SharePoint-15 Beta. I started programming on 8085 assembly language and then moved to MS technology. I have also worked as android developer as my hobby.

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