Manufacturers of 802.11b wireless networking gear will no longer be able to point at Microsoft as the reason why they haven't yet released their updates implementing the Wireless Protected Access (WPA) security enhancement. Microsoft today announced that the Windows XP Support Patch for adding WPA is now available for Knowledge Base article .The free patch, which requires that XP's Service Pack 1 be installed first, adds improved data encryption through the use of Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), and user authentication via 802.1x and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP).Although Microsoft's patch is a necessary piece of the WPA puzzle, wireless LAN gear manufacturers must now deliver their end of the deal by releasing updated drivers and firmware for Access Points, wireless clients and any other WLAN product that currently uses WEP encryption as its primary security mechanism. WLAN products must also support the 802.1x authentication framework, which was already present in Win XP, and is used by many proprietary WLAN authentication schemes.