Hardware manufacturers almost always ship Windows drivers with their products.

Microsoft Windows has comprehensive driver-level support for Wi-Fi, the quality of which depends on the hardware manufacturer. In cases where built-in configuration and management support is non-existent or inadequate, hardware manufacturers may include software to handle those tasks. In most cases, drivers emulate an Ethernet device and use the configuration and management utilities built into the operating system. These systems are often provided by the operating system backed by a standard driver model. This also includes support for various encryption methods.

Also available are Unix clones such as Linux, sometimes through open-source projects.Ĭonfiguration and management support consists of software to enumerate, join, and check the status of available Wi-Fi networks. ĭriver support is tipically provided by manufacturers of the chip set hardware or end manufacturers. It usually consists of two pieces of software: driver-level support, and configuration and management applications. Operating system Wi-Fi support is defined as the facilities an operating system may include for Wi-Fi networking. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.