Install/set up Airport express

[gingersmarty]

Hi,

Following a couple of recent discussions on this site, i today bought an airport Express base station and spent most of the day trying to set it up.

I want to set up a wireless system from my laptop to my stereo, i have had absolutely no sucess.

has anyone got an idiots guide to setting this up? i have used the manual but have got nowhere.

when i get the base recognised, no matter what i press, it says i am about to change network and am i sure, to be honest i'm not

i have less of an idea than when i started 3 hrs ago!!

Sean

 

[professorhat]

First things first, do you have a wireless network already in place or are you using the Airport Express to set one up from scratch? Also, are you using Mac or PC and if PC, what's your operating system?

 

[gingersmarty]

Hi, i already have a wireless network in place(Sky-netgear)

I have a laptop running vista.

sean

 

[professorhat]

Shucks, that's always the more difficult to setup!

Okay, so, first thing is first, we need to get the Airport Express to join your existing wireless network. Try following through these instructions first and see if this works. If not, post back and I'll see if I can help you where it's going wrong.

 

[gingersmarty]

i managed to follow the instructions on the whole, however at the end when i updated the following message appeared,

"the settings saved on this computer for the network do not match the requirements of the network"- in the "connect to" panel and i noticed that my normal internet connection dropped out halfway through the update process

i managed to change settings in the network manager and everything appears ok, there is a steady green light on top of the AE and i am hooked up to the internet in the normal way.

However i cannot acess anything contained within the settings tab within the ulitilty and cannot hear any music going anywhere. do i need anything else- airflow? or changes to settings somewhere.

Sean

ps the running order supplied was not followed exactly and i diont think step 8 ever appeared

 

[professorhat]

Okay, sounds promising maybe!

Within the Airport Utility, once you're connected, there should be a Music tab at the top and you can click on this and then there is a box which says Enable AirTunes - if you tick this and then fill in the iTunes Speaker Name and then click Update, once the AE unit has reset and you have the green light again, you should then have an option within iTunes at the bottom right to change the speaker output from Computer to whatever you put in the iTunes Speaker Name. If you can't see this, it's worth going into the iTunes Preferences and, on the Devices tab, ensure the Look for remote speakers connected with AirTunes box is ticked.

Apologies, I am looking at all this on a Mac so I'll try and find some PC based guide to make sure what I'm saying looks the same on the PC!

 

[gingersmarty]

Prof,.

i cant be the first, you are a star, THANK YOU

NOW.............how to spotify the mother.

Sean

 

[professorhat]

No worries!

If you're looking to output Spotify to the Airport Express, you can't do this out of the box - I'm afraid you can only stream iTunes. However, there is an application called Airfoil (available here) which will let you stream anything to the Airport Express. You can use it on trial to start with, but to buy it, I think it costs about $25.

 

[gingersmarty]

Hi Prof,

seen it, bought and downloaded, working fine.

Thanks again for you patience.

Sean.