My home network with 3 OpenWrt routers has 802.11r enabled and working as evident from system log and my mobile devices roaming and maintaining bandwidth.
But my Windows 11 laptop stutters each time it roams and log indicates pairwise handshake which means 802.11r doesn't kick in. Then there is this website that says "Windows® 10 currently doesn't support 802.11r with Pre-Shared-Key (PSK) and Open Networks."
If I understand it correctly then you need a EAP authentication method and a RADIUS server running somewhere in your network.
Never done this before... Plus with my IoT devices connected to my wireless network, I suspect a lot of these devices will not know how to connect with EAP enabled. So, basically I will need to live with my laptop not supporting 802.11r?
In the end it always boils down to your wireless driver: does it support the needed bits and bolts? And chances are you might be running a new and shiny Windows 10 or 11, but the hardware drivers might just have been bumped with the absolute minimum required - ie to compile agains the newer APIs MS might offer, etc. But no actual added features, because that costs money.
I suppose this is holder hardware you put a recent Windows on?
I wouldn't trust what it's listed in that link (both intel and windows ones).
Sure the driver reports .11w/.11r/etc support but, let's take my case with 9260, in that list it say Yes to .11w, driver say it support .11w, yet when I set ieee80211w='2', 9260 is unable to connect, yet a joke realtek usb dongle is happy connecting to it.
In linux on the other hand the problem that I face in windows plain doesn't happen, the 9260 happy connects.
In windows no matter what drivers I tried with 9260 it plain doesn't want to connect as long as ieee80211w='2'. In some older versions of Win 10 it was working. And I have no clue what is broken and were cause the realtek usb dongle happy connects no matter what win 10 version I used.
The idea is that the driver might just report support for some feature, yet that feature might just not work at all in supported/current Windows version
Maybe so, but I find that lists like "802.11ac devices supported by OpenWRT"..."802.11x devices supported by OpenWRT" much easier to find what I'm looking for.
It is an older machine, but I swapped out the wifi card for a pretty new Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210. So even the AX210 isn't supporting 802.11r (with PSK anyway).
And if what Intel says here is anything to go by, I have a chance of making it work if I change authentication from PSK to EAP. Not about to try though.
Unfortunately, Windows 10/11 doesn't currently support 802.11r. It's a bit of a bummer, but hopefully Microsoft will add it in a future update. In the meantime, there are a few workarounds to help get the most out of your connection speed. First, look for any available software or firmware updates for your router. This could fix the issue and help you get the speed you want. Second, check for any available network settings that might improve your performance. This includes things like changing the channel your router broadcasts on or disabling certain features.
