MacBook Pro and the wireless revisited

So I thought I had solved the mystery surrounding the MacBook Pro and connecting to the wireless network. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

If I boot into Vista and then reboot the machine into Mac OSX then it will connect to the wireless network; this was the scenario I had obviously chanced upon previously and which was subsequently incorrectly diagnosed as being due to switching Bluetooth off. The next time I went into Mac OSX directly, the MacBook Pro couldn't connect to the network!

So, it seems that the initial negotiation phase - the logging in, the retrieval of dhcp settings, etc etc - is not something that the MacBook Pro and my 3Com router can do. However, once Vista has done all the grunt work, Mac OSX can negotiate a 'continued connection.' Of course, irrespective of the operating system, the wireless card will have a specific MAC address which is obviously being treated differently once a connection has been made.......

So, I've bitten the bullet. I've ordered an AirPort Extreme Base Station which should solve all my problems. Here's hoping.