New
#11
Dwarf, thank you.
Yes, the other computers on the network have been happily connected and have become disconnected only as a result of my constant fiddling with the router. They happily reconnect once I've communicated the new settings. Only the Windows 7 laptop has an issue.
The wireless adapter is not a usb device but an internal card that Dell replaced last week hoping to solve the issue. It is an Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300AGN wireless card running driver version 15.3.1.2 released 9/30/2012. Unfortunately no other device on the network has this card. I have worked with Dell to try different versions of the driver and at one point did a complete restore back to June when everything was running beautifully but so far none of the driver versions we have tried has worked and the problem resurfaced after the complete restore to June. The restore was a backup of all partitions using Acronis which was why I initially rejected a software solution and thought it must be hardware or router related. I will try resetting the password per your solution however may not know the results for many hours since I can typically reconnect once per major change to the router and remain connected for an indefinite period of time before losing connection and ability to connect. New mother board has arrived, will try afterwards...