May 28, 2006 - PCAUSA has released V5.5.18.05 of the PCAUSA NDIS Tools.

The primary feature included in this release is enhancement of the OIDScope
application to be aware of the Windows Vista Beta 2 (Build 5384) NDIS Object
Identifiers (OIDs).

For those not familiar with OIDScope, it is an application that allows you
to make NDIS queries on an adapter without installing a NDIS driver.

The NDIS Tools also include a simple utility that allows you to lookup NDIS
OIDs based on OID numeric value or defined name.

V5.5.18.05 can be used to make queries on the new Native Wi-Fi OID_DOT11_XYZ
OIDs. However, Native Wi-Fi adapters do NOT respond to the OID_802_11_XYZ
OIDs used on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Consequently the OIDScope
802.11 tabs are not displayed on Native Wi-Fi adapters on Vista.

For those interested in Vista Native Wi-Fi, the Vista WDK includes sample
Native Wi-Fi drivers based on the RealTek RTL8185 chipset. This chipset is
included in the CompUSA "54 Mbps Wireless C PCI Adapter", SKU 333618. In
addition to the WDK driver samples using this chipset/adapter, Vista 5384
includes in-box Native Wi-Fi driver for this adapter.

In addition, the IntelR 3945 mini-PCI Express adapter has an in-box Vista
Native Wi-Fi driver. The Intel 3945 seems to be pretty common in newer
notebooks that use the Intel CoreT Duo processor.

This release of NDIS Tools Windows MSI installer file and the executables
are digitally signed. It can be downloaded from:

http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/ndistools.htm

If anyone encounters peculiarities installing NDIS Tools V5.5.18.05 on
Vista, please let me know.

Warm regards,

Thomas F. Divine