Vista - nVidia Networking Controller (again?)

I have a networking issue with my daughter's MESH computer which was working fine until last weekend. Now I can't connect to the Internet as I get the error 'Windows cannot find any networks'. This points to a problem with either the nVidia nForce Networking controller or the Belkin USB wireless adapter (a hardware or device driver issue). In device manager both are shown as working OK however (latest drive and software up to date). I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers (from a Belkin CD supplied with the USB stick and from an nVidia download) but all to no avail. I've searched the Internet for a solution and came across this forum as it appeared other people have had similar issues. I've read all the posts I can find and tried to follow the advice which typically suggests re-installing drivers or uninstalling system updates but nothing seems to work. I've contacted MESH, but to date the responses have not been helpful. I've also tried the Belkin USB adapter in another laptop and was able to connect to my wireless network so it can't be the USB adapter itself. Is it possible there is a physical fault with the motherboard or is it more likely to be a Vista/nVidia incompatibility (how would I know?). I'm tearing my hair out here as my daughter needs the PC for school. Is there anything I can do before I have to resort to completely reformatting and reinstalling the OS (which may introduce other problems)? I dont understand what has happened as everything worked OK last week! I'm using Vista Home Premium 32bit by the way and trying to connect to a Netgear wireless router.

Hello jimgardner,
If you can, and without losing too much, try a system restore, to a point before it went wrong, and see if that cures it, if it does then see what has been installed and un-installed in that period, (software and/or hardware) you may want to run a disk check too after the restore. Good luck and post your results.

Many thanks. Tried this and it worked (kicked myself for not thinking of this earlier!). Had to restore back to end May as I wasn't quite sure when the problem arose in the first place (it's my daughter's PC not mine). After what seemed like a lengthy restore process, a final reboot did the trick and we now have wireless connection back again!. Don't think we've lost very much so definitely a much better solution than a complete reinstall of Vista. I have now switched off Windows automatic updating and there are quite a few in the pipeline waiting to be installed which we are notified about every time we shut down, but I dont want to take any chances as I guess one of these updates caused the problem. My daughter can't install software as she doesn't have admin rights so I'm guessing it was the automatic Windows updates that caused the problem initially. Many thanks for taking the time to reply.

Glad you got it fixed, if you create a restore point you could install the updates one at a time (create a restore point after each one) to see which one is the culprit, anyways i will leave that up to you. Good luck.