What does a wireless network adapter "disassociated state" mean?

Please help.

I cannot seem to find an explanation anywhere.

T

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It means that even though you can see a Wireless network SSID being broadcast on the client interface's spectrum/wireless range, you are not talking to it directly. Once you associate (meaning: choose to talk to this network), then the next step would be to authenticate if there is the need to do that via security measures implemented by the network administrator.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5418. Check out the "Forming an association (joining)" part for a more technical overview of this phase of the connection process.

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