Wireless Change On A Large Scale

[guardian]

The company I work for has an affiliate that has decided to change their wireless information (SSID and from WEP to WPA).  Is there a way to change this to all of my mobile device without having to touch every one?  Is there a script, custom GPO, registry export trick or anything I can do? We are currently running a 2003 Server environment and all devices are Windows XP SP2.

[Zylstra]

I'm not yet a server expert, but, in short, no, not really.

Send an email out to all employees with the password, and detailed instructions on how to get it all set up. (Include pictures, some people just dont get how any of that works!)

If you work with "boxes" in your office, where everyone has their own box, you might consider printing out informational text and distributing it into those boxes, since, emailing it, people wont realize that when their wireless stops working, they will loose their email.

[guardian]

I'm not yet a server expert, but, in short, no, not really.

Send an email out to all employees with the password, and detailed instructions on how to get it all set up. (Include pictures, some people just dont get how any of that works!)

If you work with "boxes" in your office, where everyone has their own box, you might consider printing out informational text and distributing it into those boxes, since, emailing it, people wont realize that when their wireless stops working, they will loose their email.

On a security level that is just unacceptable.......  That's putting all of our information to widely available to the people who have no need to know it and creates a huge security risk.

I am actually looking at using a GPO along with a registry export to make the change.

[Zylstra]

They can just view the wireless password by finding it in the wireless configuration.

And what happens if someone disconnects, and needs to reconnect? They will have to get it eventually.

I will say this:
Make sure the password is different from WEP code, since, WEP can be hacked in about, oh, 40 seconds or so. If someone in your area has done this, the code would already be out.
Second, make sure, and this is a bit obvious, that you "push" out the wireless code information before you do the switch, otherwise no one will be connected to the network when it happens.
That could also be a problem if you have many users disconnected from the domain, you might consider updating group policy with registry edit a few days before the switch if its possible.