WlanSetProfile from wlanapi.dll in Windows XP fails

Question

I am creating a program which will be able to connect automatically to a wireless network. For doing that, I am using a library called ManagedWifi, which uses the library "wlanapi.dll". When I try to use the code on Windows Vista, everything is fine, but when I use it on Windows XP it fails. I have checked that it has Service Pack 3 installed, and "wlanapi.dll" is located in Windows/system32. The problem is when ManagedWifi calls this method:

[DllImport("wlanapi.dll")]
        public static extern int WlanSetProfile(
            [In] IntPtr clientHandle,
            [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStruct)] Guid interfaceGuid,
            [In] WlanProfileFlags flags,
            [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string profileXml,
            [In, Optional, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string allUserProfileSecurity,
            [In] bool overwrite,
            [In] IntPtr pReserved,
            [Out] out WlanReasonCode reasonCode);

You can view a description for this method here. The error I am receiving is the following: 1206 (ERROR_BAD_PROFILE). As you can see in this page it is a known error, and the only thing I have to do is to download and install the hotfix. Well, I have done that and the error is still there. The profile is correct, because I get it from a call to WlanGetProfile

I just want to connect to a network using WlanConnect, but as you can see in the function's page: Windows XP with SP3 and Wireless LAN API for Windows XP with SP2: You can only use WlanConnect to connect to networks on the preferred network list. To add a network to the preferred network list, call WlanSetProfile.

I am really desperate, I've been fighting to this error some days, and I need to go through it...

And, if I try to call WlanConnect method without calling SetProfile, the result is always the same: it doesn't connect.

I will appreciate any idea you can provide with.

Answer 1

There's a WlanReasonCode out parameter which should tell you why the profile is invalid. Is that any help?

What machine did you get the profile from? IIRC XP supports only a subset of profiles supported on later platforms.

Oh and I don't know if you can WlanConnect to an IBSS (ad-hoc) network on XP.