Windows 7: Trying to connect a wireless printer via ad hoc

I've been having some trouble connecting a wireless printer a friend bought. The instructions that were included unfortunately aren't very clear. My friend also has no choice to connect via ad hoc since his modem isn't wireless capable. So I bought him a PCIe wireless adapter. Now the computer is wireless capable (I can see all the networks in my area). After this is where the printer's instructions become useless. It seems to assume I already have a network since it begins with telling me to know my SSID and password. However, his computer has no network per say. He only has the Local Area Connection. So I try two different ways to create a network. Both times were successful as I was able to connect the printer and use it. The problem is that the computer won't stay connected to this network. I have to manually connect to the network on start-up. Both attempts at making a network, I checked the "Manage Wireless Networks" window. The first attempt, the network was set to Manually Connect. So I assumed that was the problem. So I recreated the network a different way and it did say Automatically Connect. I thought, "Great, now it's fixed and the printer is permanently connected." But upon restart, it still disconnected. Is there a way to configure the computer to truly connect automatically as soon as the it boots?

I've also considered the possibility that manually creating a network is the wrong approach, but it's all I could think of having been forced to ignore a confusing manual that clearly would prefer me to use infrastructure mode. The two options I used to set up a network were the following, both under Network and Sharing Center>Set Up a New Connection or Network

-Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer network)
-Manually connect to a wireless network

I was really interested in the "Set Up a New Network" option, but it resulted in a page where I must choose an access point from a list that was empty. I don't know what I'm doing wrong there. I presume whatever access point that should be listed, I would need either the printer or the wireless adapter.

Thank you in advance for any help provided.