Your Search Results are not a Suitable Replacement for Navigation

I bought two Airport Extreme base stations this afternoon for use in our new apartment. I've been quite happy using Apple's WDS to relay connectivity around and wanted to add another AP for our bedroom. And, why add one when I could add two for twice the price?

The only problem with this plan is that I petulantly continue to use Windows, primarily because Apple is genetically incapable of producing a laptop that weighs under a thousand pounds, mostly because that's what's running on my Thinkpad x31. Apple does not (appear to) provide the latest version of the Airport Utility for Windows on their web site. Sure, I could use the handy-dandy CDs that came with the Extremes, if I had a CD reader.

With the previous Airports I've bought (two for us, three for someone else), I've been able to download all of the necessary software off apple.com, onto my stinkpad, and get going. Not so, not with the Extreme.

My frustration is exacerbated by the lack of an actual link off the Airport related pages to downloads specific to the Airports. Other links from the Apple - Support - Airport page zero in on Manuals, Specifications and other things relevant to Airports, but the "Downloads" link just goes to Apple's Download page, which is entirely driven by search results. Now, I could page through 10+ pages of results if I had all of the time in the world, but it's easier to vent here.

Searching on Airport Utility returns four pages of results. Apple leads off the results with its own sort of in-house ads including Download the latest AirPort update, which of course doesn't actually link to the latest Airport update, it links to the downloads page. The first page of results is all updates, all of which pre-req having the latest version of the Airport Utility, which is what we're hunting for.

The second page of results shows listing for the Airport Utility, from the days of 5 and 10Gb iPods. If I needed the Airport Utility 3.1 for Mac OS 9 I could easily grab it, but 5.1 for Windows is just not appearing anywhere.

I finally gave up and went hunting through the discussion forums, which reveal that Apple do not provide a downloadable version of the Airport Utility 5.1 for either Windows or OS X, which is just so 1990s. Next they'll start selling wireless phones which require cables to connect to your computer.