Network Controller Driver–not Adapter Driver  

A few days ago I did a clean install of Windows 7. Now I have a problem. The computer is a wireless 'client'. It has a Realtek RTL8168D/8111D PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20).

When I bring up Device Manager and expand 'Network adapters' I see "Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller".

When I expand 'Other devices' I see "! Network Controller" (Note the exclamation point.) Double click on that and I see "The driver for this device is not installed. (Code 28). When I click on Update driver I get a message Can't find a driver. I have tried many times with different source folders and files and nowhere is a driver found.

I have gone to MSIs driver web page and downloaded the Realtek PCI-E Ethernet Driver for Windows 7 32/64 bit "realtek_pcielan_7_nb.zip", extracted the files and still no joy. (M/B is MSI G41M with Intel E7400)

There is a wireless icon in the tray. I click 'Open network and sharing center". No matter what I choose Win7 ends up telling me to plug in an Ethernet cable. No, this is a client not the server. I have verified that the NIC can connect to the computer with the Ethernet cable by using the old XP hard disk.

Any suggestions?

Disable the onboard lan in the bios if you aren't using a wire to ever connect.

It turns out that Windows 7 or MSI tricked me.

After setup, Device Manager showed the Network adapter as being a Realtek PCI-e controller. This was not correct.

I decided to solve this problem by rounding up every related disk. Turns out I had a Rosewill disk. I put it in the DVD drive and ran Setup. It informed me that I in fact have a Ralink RT61 Turbo Wireless LAN card, not Realtek. When it completed setup, I was informed of several access points available to me, including my Home LAN.

Problem solved.

Now if I could just find out how to increase the width of my scollbars. (in XP, Control Panel, Display, Appearance tab, Advanced.).