Surface WPA2 Enterprise 802.1x Computer Authentication

Author: Steve April 8, 2014 0 Comments

We have a number of laptops that are joined to our domain that are configured to connect to a wireless network via 802.1x and authenticate with their domain computer account.  This allows our users to then log in with their domain account on the devices.

I was given a Microsoft Surface Tablet to configure the same way

• Login using the local admin account on the Surface
• apply any available updates and reboot
• join the Surface to your domain and reboot
• open a command prompt and enter “netsh“
• enter “wlan“
• enter “show profiles“
• if there are any WLAN profiles you’ll want to delete them using ‘delete profile name=<profilename>‘
• Press Winkey+X and select Control Panel
• Go to ‘View network status and tasks’
• Select ‘Set up a new connection or network’
• Select Manually connect to a wireless network
• Enter Network name, select Security type & Encryption type which in my case was WPA2 Enterprise and AES
• Press Next, and then select Change connection settings
• Select the Security tab
• Confirm the network authentication is Microsoft: Protected EAP (PEAP) then select Advanced settings
• Pleace a check on Specify authentication mode: change drop list to computer authentication
• Click OK, OK and then Close

Assuming all the stars have aligned then you should be all set.  You’ll want to give it a reboot and when it comes back up you can check the network status in the bottom left corner before trying to log in with a domain account.