thanks for explaining. i was not aware that eth1 is different.
i tried eth2 and now it detects the neighbor in WinBox. it detects v 7.11.3 (from last september).
still no password/username combination gets me in. not the original password printed on the sticker, nor the one that i changed it to. also still no wifi showing up (that i did not disable).
for initial setup the hAP did not show up as neighbor, but it was connected to my switch on eth0. because it did not show up as neighbor, i used wifi and mobilephone for setup, not winbox.
any suggestions on how to force a configuration reset?