Wireless Networking Under Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit

[wheresgrant]

I recently purchased a closeout deal- Quad Core, 8GB machine which I plan to use for audio recording and video editing. The problem is that it is running Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit. The PC is located in a room that does not have access to a router or cat-5 cables. It does have a Wifi signal from the Wireless G router I use. I've tried the following options with no success at all...

WiFi PCI card. Vista recognizes the hardware but can't find an available network. even neighbors.
USB Wifi Antenna... Vista recognizes the hardware but find an available network. even neighbors.
Linksys Wireless Access point-Cat 4 running to the NIC card. Configured with existing Wifi Router. Again... can't find any available network signals...

So the fix at this point is to get rid of Vista... the question is to roll back to XP or upgrade to Windows 7? If I roll back to XP Pro I have a familar environment... plenty of available drivers, compatibility with all the hardware and software I plan to use... though I lose 5 GB of desktop memory.

If I move to Windows 7... I get a beautiful interface... but I'm worried about driver issues and continued networking problems.

Any suggestions on which way to go?

 

[buwish]

Have the drivers been loading from Windows update for your wireless hardware in the computer itself or are you using the drivers that came with it? You can try and update the driver and see if that works first, depending on how old the wireless PCI card/antenna are. If you switch to W7 you may encounter the same issues, but I would check to see if the PCI card and Antenna are compatible with it first.

 

[wheresgrant]

The wireless PCI card is a Sarbent... I downloaded and installed (on a thumbdrive) updated drivers from their website.

The USB Wireless Adapter was a Belkin. Did the full install off the CD... again it would see the device, recognize the drivers, then in Device Manager it would state that there was a problem with the driver.... yet when I pulled up the device it would state the device is working properly.

The Wireless Access Point was a Netgear again it would see the device, recognize the drivers, then in Device Manager it would state that there was a problem with the driver.... yet when I pulled up the device it would state the device is working properly.


The problem is clearly Windows 64 bit. I've read articles stating that there have been problems with past and current networking devices and Vista 64 bit, yet I can't find any resolution except to contact the manufactuer and try some third party driver solutions?

This experience is painful.