MWconn got a new homepage which is also available in English (here). What is MWconn anyways? Take a look at my short MWconn setup guide / introduction plus if you use a Merlin UMTS card on Windows Vista, my installation instructions for the U630.

Aside from just reporting the fact, I decided to write a short guided tour to get you started - and tested it with the most recent version of Windows Vista 5472.

1. Download from http://mwconn.tribal-sunrise.com/ - the site is still German-only, but simply click the link "Version 1.0".
2. Copy to folder UMTS
   
3. Right-click and Run as Administrator
4. You are asked for your preferred language - click No for English
   
5. MWConn asks to create connection-type specific program copies - choose Yes:
   
6. MWConn needs a connection to dial - it can create one itself, so choose Yes:
   
7. You will be presented a message box that informs you about connection creation success / failure. You are almost done, and your UMTS folder now looks like this:
   
8. Run UMTSGPRS (as Administrator). If asked again for the language, choose No to retain English. It will exit with a note that you should edit MWConn.ini.
9. Edit MWConn.ini - you only need to edit a few entries:
   
   08 COM=
   09 PIN=
   10 NET=
   11 APN=
10. Once done, start UMTSGPRS again, and you will be logged into your network:
    

For details on configuring the settings in #9, see the Comments section of my previous blog post Merlin - Yes, Magic IS Required.

My post Novatel Wireless Merlin U630 on Windows Vista generated quite some feedback like "How did you install the drivers?". So I decided to take the latest and greatest build 5456 and see if I would get it up and running there too. Here is the list of things you need to do:

Obviously, the first thing to do is to insert the card. You will be prompted for driver installation, and it will try to do just that. However, it will only succeed in installing a "Generic Multifunction PC-Card". The two ports (later identified as multifunction device) will fail because it cannot detect the drivers.

Now we have to rectify this problem. Let's go to Device Manager (via Control Panel / Hardware), and right-click on the "Generic Multifunction PC-Card".  Choose "Update Driver":

This will magically turn it into the Novatel Wireless UMTS Modem Parent. And this in turn will allow auto-detection of the two ports:

Please note that the secondary port will show up under COM ports, not Modems:

And here things get hairy - as I pointed out, I am using MWConn. The current 0.9 version (as a reminder: at this time, German-only) assumes that the secondary port is above the primary (ie COM4 for primary, COM5 for secondary). However, on one of my laptops (Samsung X20) - the screenshot above - it is exactly the other way around and MWConn cannot cope with that at the moment. The IBM X31 orders the ports nicely right - and as such, UMTS works like a charm!

By the way, use MWConn with administrative rights because it does create network connections:

I will report back on the inverted port problem, the author of MWConn promised to send me an updated version that can deal with this issue. So stay tuned!

Update I got the new version - and I am modifying this blog entry under Windows Vista 5456 using the Merlin U630 in UMTS mode, on the Samsung X20. Now both laptops work! Proof:

Today I set up my new laptop with Windows Vista - a "dry run" for Beta 2, because I want to use it as the primary OS on that machine. Part of the drill was getting my UMTS card (a Merlin U630) up and running.

First, I tried it using the standard software that came with the card. Installation went smoothly, however the Connection Manager software is based on an HTA solution, and IE7 most definitely didn't want to cooperate and kept throwing JavaScript errors (Note: I view this as a bug of the Connection Manager software, this is most decidedly not IE's fault). Dialing using this software therefore was out of the question.

So I went out on the Internet to search for a solution. At first, I tried dialing manually using AT commands, but it turned out that initializing a Merlin card isn't exactly easy-peasy. So I decided that a thorough forum search was in order. Thankfully, that search turned up a great piece of software (onlinekosten.de Community to the rescue).

What I found is MWConn (looks like that this time the international audience is out of luck, at least at the time of this writing as the software is German only). It does support the Novatel card, allows for dialing (make sure you check the default connection that is generated, at least my provider is using a different dial-in number), gives feedback on UL / DL traffic you generate, plus signal quality information. Way cool & saved my day!