Making SMCWUSBT-G wireless adapter work with Windows 7

In case you have SMCWUSBT-G, this post may help in making it work with Windows 7.

I had major problems getting this work with Windows 7 (the manufacturer is not helpful despite requests for windows 7 drivers). But you can get it work with the drivers meant for previous windows versions.

1. Download the software/driver (SMCWUSBT-G_V1.11.000.ZIP) from http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=viewProduct&cid=5&scid=31&localeCode=EN%5FUSA&pid=1467

2. Unzip & Install the software. We are only interested in two files from this installation.

Of course it may never work - You may be prompted to insert the adpater, but it may not recognise it & entire installation may even get cancelled. If you have problems, try the vista or xp compatibility option (Right click -> Properties -> Compatibility).

As a last resort, if you have an XP machine/partition, install there (you can make use of the working SMCWUSBT-G installation if you have one on that machine/partition).

3. Copy the two files ar5523.sys & ar5523.bin (from C:\Program Files\SMCWUSBT-G*) to a temp. directory, let us say, C:\Temp

4. Go to Device Manager & update the driver for AR5523 letting windows search for the drivers in C:\Temp (overriding any warnings). Windows 7 will install the drivers & it may be able to connect to the wireless networks. If not see 5.

You may uninstall the software installed in 2, if you managed to do so. It is not required.

5. I had varying success with the windows 7 bits - Beta/RC/RTM. While the above steps worked on Beta/RC bits, it did not work on the RTM bits. It turned out that I had to make a change on my SMCWBR14T-G router as well for the RTM bits to work - I had Super G-Static Turbo mode (proprietory I guess) enabled on the wireless router earlier - turned this off & enabled 802.11g. It started working & hopefully stays that way!

Overall, it was a very painful exercise.

Regards,
Muthu

PS:
I am not a windows person, so I may not be giving the exact procedure here, but you get the idea.

I finally got this to work on my Windows 7 Professional x64 system... although like previous posters have said, this was a painful exercise.

First, the SMCWUSBT-G does not officially have support for x64 based systems. I tried various different drivers from the SMC site and none of them worked. After doing research though, this wireless adapter is just leverages an Atheros AR5523 device. I found a NETGEAR WPN111 adapter that uses the same device and they've updated the driver to support x64 based systems.

So, here are the steps:

1) download the Netgear wpn111 adapter drivers and software for Windows 7.
2) Run the installer to completion.
3) Go to the installation directory and navigate to the drivers directory and copy out these 3 files to some temporary directory: athrxusb.sys, WPN111vx.cat, WPN111vx.inf
4) Uninstall the NETGEAR software (its not needed).
5) In the temporary directory, open up the .inf file with a text editor.
6) Find this line: "%ATHR.DeviceDesc.5523% = ATHR_DEV_5523.ndi, USB\VID_1385&PID_5F01"
7) Copy that line to a new one below it.
8**) Edit the copied line and change USB\VID_1385&PID_5F01 to USB\VID_1690&PID_0711 - save the file
8) Plug in your wireless adapter if it not already plugged in. Go to the device manager and find the AR5523 device that should not be working.
9) Right-click and select "Update driver software...", browse for the location of the driver and point it at the temporary directory containing the modified .inf file.
10) The driver should install and everything should work now... have fun!!

**NOTE: This step is where you fool the driver software into thinking you installed a NETGEAR adapter rather than the SMC adapter. The section I changed is basically the Hardware Id of my SMC adapter. If you don't have the exact model I have, you may need to use a different Hardware Id. To find it, just go to the device manager, find the unused AR5523 device, right-click and select properties, go to the details tab and select "Hardware Ids" from the pick list. This is the Hardware Id you want to replace for step 8.

Thanks gman7103. I tried to figure out a way to pm you, but I can't figure out how to do it on this site. I really hope you get to read this. The original post date for this topic was in '09 and you posted this 2 days ago (today is 5/29/13). How cool is that? This is exactly the information I needed to get my network adapter working on Windows 7. Thanks!

No problem scotty562. Glad to see it working for someone else.

And one more! I'm also happy that I found the solution of gman7103 - worked for me, too!

I hope this helps someone as well. I tried the prior suggestions with no success. Snappy Driver tries to install the correct driver but ends with a BSOD. Anyways, it's almost 2025 now, and I finally had success with the microsoft update catalog (the driver however is back from 2008 so maybe it has been there a while). I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit on a Dell Optiplex 7040 SFF. The file that finally worked for me: Go to the microsoft update catalog and search for USB\VID_083A&PID_4505. Several drivers come up; 2 of them are 1MB in file size. One of them is for X86 and the other AMD64. You want the 64 one. This is the 1MB file whose cabinet file name begins with 20194377 (not 20194376). Download the cabinet file and open it. It has 4 files (4 unhidden files for sure). Put them in a temp folder, delete the device from your system (and any previous driver software), plug your smc usb wifi back in, update driver manually, browse to temp folder, and that's all it finally took. It shows up as SMCWUSB-G 802.11g Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter. I know the previous posts helped some. If they fail as in my case, what I did may work for you. I hope this helps someone else out.