Linksys WMA11B user reviews

Pros Inexpensive ($30 @ CompUSA - no rebate required)

Cons Not the most intuitive

Summary Bucked the negative reviews figuring that for the $30 asking price, I'd give it a shot and see if I could get it working. Was intially very frustrated by the fact that the configuration software couldn't locate the device on my network even though I could see it in the DHCP list. Found that by temporarily disabling my Firewall (ZoneAlarm - free version), the configuration utility was able to find and configure the adapter. After that I re-enabled the firewall and was off to the races – it works pretty well too. There are definitely some things I'd like to see them do differently, but for $30 - it's worth the price.

Pros All Those MP3’s On The Computer, Are Now Playing On The Stereo

Cons Hard To Setup – Included Software Is Not Polished

Summary Once you get the Linksys Media Adapter up and running you will be the envy of your friends with all those mp3’s streaming to your stereo and basic song info being displayed on your TV.

So first the hard part getting the Media Adapter up and running, the Media Adapter has two flaws – the software out of the box isn’t Windows XP SP2 compliant and the device doesn’t work with the windows firewall. The work around is fairly straight forward. For the software you need to download the patch from Linksys - first you install the software then you can install the patch. As for the firewall you have two options if you are using the windows firewall you can turn it off (not advised to run your computer without a software firewall), or you can use another firewall. The problem with the windows firewall is that you can open up the firewall to specific software or ports but you can’t open it to a specific IP address. I’m running the MacAfee firewall which allowed me to designate the media adapter’s ip address as a trusted connection.

Once you get the Linksys media adapter up and running you’ll find that the software is less than polished. The biggest problem is that as you rip more music into your music directory the software does a poor job keeping up and the next time you try to use your media adapter you’ll find that your map of your music directory is corrupted and it will only see a fraction of your music the solution seems to be a reboot of your computer.

After you get back these quirks the device works great. I’ve never had such great access to all my music before.

Pros Play MP3's and View Pics from your computer on your Home Theater System.

Cons Doesn't work with Win XP SP-2, doesn't work with MS or McAfee Firewall, terrible remote response.

Summary I have used this product for a year and a half. I've called customer service at least a dozen times to get it to work. It seem that everytime I would update Windows XP I would have to reset my router and the Media adapter. Then, when it did work it would respond as slowly to it's remote as FEMA did with Katrina. Don't buy if you are a techie that keeps his computer up to date. The Linksys Media Adapter program engineers can't keep up with the current MS operating software changes. As far as I know there hasn't been a firmware update and the beta software update that they 'allowed' me to download was about a year old. Now that doesn't mean I don't like Linksys. I have their router and cable modem and they are top notch.

Pros Does Exactly What it Says it Does

Cons Will not work thru a firewall and XP SP2 .net Framework

Summary Purchased and installed it about a year ago. Worked fine, had no problems. Easy to install and setup. Updated to XP Service Pack 2 and things got weird. It still played music from the folders I had defined in the Media Adapter Folder Manager when I was running with SP1. But when I attempted to add additional folders using the Media Adapter Folder Manager an error was generated telling me to stop and restart the application's service. This did nothing to resolve the issue. I sent an email to Linksys customer support. They responded with a fix in about 11 hours. This device will not work with MS .net Framework 1.1 and associated patches. Basically Linksys' resolution is removing the .net Framework 1.1 and installing .net Framework 1.0 (which is in the Media Adapter's installation CD). The device supports WEP so the the firewall issue not really a major problem if your wireless network is configured correctly (though the firewall issue is a shortcoming). Some of the newer media adapters now support video, iNet radio and a wider selection of supported photo formats. Still, I liked the look and performance of this product.