Windows 7 identifies WPA2 network as WEP

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...

Dwarf said:

So it's just this computer that you have the problem with? Presumably all your other computers that you have and connect wirelessly with use the same settings (password/security level) as this one, yet they remain connected?

What I'm going to suggest is to temporarily change the password on the router to a new one and see if the problematic machine maintains its connection with the new password (you will, of course, need to use the new password on both router and machine). Don't worry about the others not being able to connect, as this is only for testing purposes and you can always reset the password to the original afterwards. In fact, you may well find that this solves the problem. Another thing would be to ensure that the driver is up to date, as support for WEP/WPA/WPA2 is a function of the driver. What network adapters do you have on your other computers? If one of them is the same (and I'm assuming that it is a USB device), try swapping it over to see if it is a hardware problem with the adapter. If you have one of a different make that is working, try that as well (but you might need to install the driver for it). Also test the adapter from your problematic machine on one of your others. Does the problem remain with the initial machine, or does it move with the adapter?

Update: the motherboard that dell sent today was defective and the computer will no longer boot. At this point they are having me send it in to their depot since it has had so many issues. So, I will not try anything for about a week until I have it returned. I'll update the post when I have it back- perhaps the issue will have been resolved by whatever work is done at the depot.

Good point, will do. Need to go buy a cage and get Acronis working on my temp computer so I can create a final backup and push the factory install onto the existing hard drive.

Dwarf said:

Before you send it back in, copy any personal data onto USB stick(s) and restore it to factory condition using the recovery partition. In all likelihood, they will do this any way, but you still don't want them to have potential access to your private information.

I am coming to the conclusion that this is indeed a Windows 7 on PC problem. My computer is back from the shop and still has the problem. The problem is consistent both with the router I bought a few months ago and which has otherwise been performing perfectly and the router I used for several years before getting the new one (only replaced it to extend the range) Both have current firmware. My new evidence comes from the fact that a friend loaned me her Windows 7 laptop to test here and I'm having similar issues on it. There are 24 devices that connect to my internet. These include an XP machine, a Vista machine, an Apple running Windows 7, multiple gaming devices, multiple iphones/pads, and the only two devices having any issues are both running Windows 7 on PC. I had initially discounted this possibility since the apple is also running Windows 7 but I am guessing the system files that interface with the wireless drivers may be the issue.
Suggestions? Not sure what else there is to do on my end except strip all security from my router and wait for Microsoft to put out a patch. I can't be the only one having problems. Please, any ideas, send them my way...

I had the same problem and solved it by changing my router's security setting from "Auto (WPA or WPA2)" to "WPA2 only". Apparently Windows 7 didn't understand the auto mode.