More networking - iTunes 8.1 vs Airport ...

This is one I call "Very Strange" and I'm fairly relieved that it has sorted itself out ...

Issue 1, very minor. Itunes 7.6 wasn't picking up album covers any more, so I went for the 8.1 update ... Oops.

Issue 2 - serious. Laptop reboots after iTunes 8.1 loads but it can't see the network :-( I'm still running an Airport Express as my router and it's been unspectacularly* (see below) reliable since I switched to it.

Diagnostic 1 - switch to main PC, see if it still has internet - yes, so it's not my adopted router at fault.

The culprit was fairly obviously the iTunes 8.1 install, as that's when the problem started. Laptop just couldn't see the Airport Express over the wi-fi link, so no intranet or internet. So I try various things :

Reboot to check if the laptop is "Doing A Microsoft"
System Restore back various steps

System Restore is a reasonably useful feature, it allows you to click a couple of buttons and go back before that software nastie crept in. Works some of the times and it's well worth a look. When it works and when it can be found. XP has it in a reasonably accessible place but it's far better hidden in Vista.

No joy here, laptop would occasionally let me know it could see my Airport but would refuse to connect. And as soon as you tried to connect, the Airport would disappear from the list of available connections. I'm back on the net though, after trying my old router out again. How's this for a weird sequence :

1 - Laptop can't see Airport.
2 - Old router plugged back in.
3 - Laptop starts saying Hello to old router.
4 - Laptop successfully connects to old router.
5 - User turns his back.
6 - Laptop starts connecting to Airport.

It's still connected and is streaming music to the speakers. Leaving me mystified as to why turning on another piece of hardware would fix communications between laptop and Airport. Maybe it bootstrapped the wifi hardware on the laptop to reset it to a state where it could talk to the Airport.

Hopefully problem solved - but we shall see tomorrow when I turn the laptop on again, without the old router to bootstrap it.

*Unspectacular performance of Airport. It's doing a job, not had any significant dropouts of connection since switching to the Airport as a main router. However, I'm still suffering a lot of frustrating lag in Warcraft. Not enough to kill a character but enough to make me seriously think about spending money on the problem later in the week. The old router is not fit for purpose now, as my old desktop has trouble connecting to it. So I'll be looking to buy another wifi router, with gaming being done by a wire link that I'll stretch under the sofa.

Normal times - desktop to connect via wifi.
Gaming online - desktop to connect by wire under sofa.

And readers have probably guessed that I live on my own, as any sane partner would go spare at the thought of the above :-)

PS Last touch - I have iTunes downloading cover art again :-)