A printed quick-setup guide walks you through what remains of the installation, and for reference, there's a CD with electronic manuals for the two units in the package. You'll find all of the necessary hardware in the box, including AC adapters and a power cord, a mounting bracket for the repeater, and a flat 7-foot Ethernet cable that is easy to conceal under carpets and rugs.

For many networking scenarios, setup will be virtually automatic: simply plug in the units. You can make the initial connection to the units with either a wireless or a wired connection, and the quick-setup guide has decent instructions for both. In either case, you access both the repeater's and the router's Web-based configuration tools by typing the unit's default IP address into the address bar of a browser on a connected computer. The router's Web-based tool has a welcome page that prominently lists the setup routines for DSL and cable broadband connections, but if you have an unusual networking setup, you can opt out of the basic Internet wizard through an advanced button. Whichever route you take, clicking through to the router's configuration settings is virtually foolproof. The user guides and the configuration tools for the individual products are terse, and they lack detailed information in places. This may make fiddling with advanced settings confusing for beginners. On the other hand, those people who are familiar with networking will appreciate the wide array of features that Buffalo puts at their disposal, such as the ability to increase or decrease power output.