need advice for capturing connection attempt details

[Robert Judy <rjudy () sfasu edu>]

Greetings,

I am about to put a Windows XP Pro based Dell laptop into a wireless 
network for the first time.

I would like to be able to capture details of the transactions that 
occur when the computer is introduced in to the wireless environment.

I need some guidance in what software is available that will allow 
incoming and outgoing communications to proceed in a "normal" fashion 
but prevent my machine from being compromised to the extent that some 
or all of the captured information is lost.

I would like freeware (please finish laughing before you reply.)

I am on a "fishing" expedition, as you can tell. I am authorized to 
do this. I can protect my computer via firewall and various other 
methods so protection is not the issue, information gathering is the 
objective.

I can sacrifice the machine if necessary (using a disk image to 
quickly restore it) but fear that I would loose vital information by 
allowing a compromise to proceed successfully and then attempting to 
discover what happened.

This may be a question for the honey pots group or the pen testing 
group but I would like as many opinions as possible.

Thank you in advance.

rmj
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