Windows 7: Win 7. Cannot connect to a network, no active network, but I'm online!

Hello, first post and hope that I might be able to get help here for a problem that is driving me crazy. Many thanks for taking the time to read below...

I wish to connect to my Homegroup. Win 7 says that I cannot as my location must be set to "Home". So I follow the link "What is a network location".

The next dialogue box says that I have no active networks so I click "Connect to a Network", which brings up the pop-up in the bottom right stating I'm not connected but there are connections available. The problem is - I AM CONNECTED and the internet is working perfectly fine in fact.

How can I get Windows to recognise my active connections, show me the icon for the network, and allow me to select home, work or private? As it stands, I just go on a merry round-about between these two dialogue boxes and never get any other options. Perhaps I need to go in to advanced options?

If it makes any difference, the Homegroup and the Network previously worked perfectly until I was asked to test another router by hooking it up to my laptop. Maybe I selected something other than Home at this point? I don't know. But since then it's been having this problem.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help.
Many thanks.

Hello,
Welcome to SevenForums. What you may want to try is disabling and then re-enabling your wireless network adapter. Do this by going to Control Panel--->Network and Internet--->Network and Sharing Center--->Change adapter Settings--->Right click your wireless network adapter and click disable, wait about 60 seconds and then enable it. Hope this helps

You might want to try using the sfc/scannow command because it looks like some files are missing.

Just type sfc/scannow into an elevated command prompt and let it run till complete.

Many thanks to both jhansen965 and chev65.

Unfortunately, I was unable to resolve the issue. Disable and then enable didn't work (even with computer restart) and alas, the sfc/scannow command wasn't successful.

I think the idea that files are missing could be correct - Windows keeps wanting to install updates (practically every single day) which I just assumed was due to installing a new version of Norton. Is this looking like a Windows reinstallation?