Detect the presence of a wireless capability on PC/Mac?

Question

I'm working on a project that requires that I can reliably detect the presence of a wireless capability on both a PC and a Mac.

Ideally I would want to achieve this through an existing command line tool I could package with my application or that perhaps already exists on the OS.

By wireless capability I mean the presence of a wireless network adapter on a Desktop PC, or built in wireless on a laptop or even a Wireless Dongle/USB Key - basically the presence of any device or component that will allow a connection to a wireless router.

I've been looking into simply capturing output from "ipconfig /all" or "systeminfo" on the PC and "system_profiler" on the Mac... then parsing for known wireless adapters and keywords but this doesn't seem like an ideal solution.

Are there any APIs I can use to achieve this on either platform?

EDIT: Ideally the platforms I would like to support are:

Windows: 2000/XP/Vista/7 Mac: 10.4/.5/.6

Answer 1

You will find Managed Wifi API to be useful

Answer 2

Instead of ipconfig why don't you simply query the all-in-one tool for network configuration, netsh?

When a WiFi device is present:

> netsh wlan show drivers

Interface name: Wireless Network Connection

    Driver                    : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
    Vendor                    : Intel Corporation
    Provider                  : Microsoft
    Date                      : 2009-03-26
    Version                   : 12.4.1.4
    INF file                  : C:\Windows\INF\netw5v64.inf
    Files                     : 1 total
                                C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\netw5v64.sys
    Type                      : Native Wi-Fi Driver
    Radio types supported     : 802.11a 802.11b 802.11g
    FIPS 140-2 mode supported : Yes
    Hosted network supported  : No
    Authentication and cipher supported in infrastructure mode:
                                Open            None
                                Open            WEP-40bit
                                Open            WEP-104bit
                                Open            WEP
                                Shared          WEP-40bit
                                Shared          WEP-104bit
                                Shared          WEP
                                WPA-Enterprise  TKIP
                                WPA-Enterprise  CCMP
                                WPA-Personal    TKIP
                                WPA-Personal    CCMP
                                WPA2-Enterprise TKIP
                                WPA2-Enterprise CCMP
                                WPA2-Personal   TKIP
                                WPA2-Personal   CCMP
                                Open            Vendor defined
    Authentication and cipher supported in ad-hoc mode:
                                Open            None
                                Open            WEP-40bit
                                Open            WEP-104bit
                                Open            WEP
                                Shared          WEP-40bit
                                Shared          WEP-104bit
                                Shared          WEP
                                WPA2-Personal   CCMP

When there is no WiFi NIC in the computer, the Wireless AutoConfig service is likely not running (because it isn't needed):

> netsh wlan show drivers
The Wireless AutoConfig Service (wlansvc) is not running.

but even when it's started manually:

> netsh wlan show drivers
There is no wireless interface on the system.