Vista - both my laptops cannot connect to wireless router please help

hi after we had an power cut , both my laptops will not work on wireless ? they work through the ethernet cable , which i had to ring tiscali to get me connected again , they said that the wireless connection needs to be reset in the registary ?, ive tried both of them on a different router but they wont connect , so must be the laptops ?im currently running windows vista , have a samsung and a advent laptop , im not to good with computers please can anyone help thankyou deb

Hi Deborah and wlecome to Vista Forums

Do you have your router permanently powered up? It is possible that loss of power has caused your router to revert back to its default settings (the same as you would get if you manually reset it). Check its configuration settings by entering http://192.168.0.1 (or the address given in your router's documentation) in the address bar of IE7 and make sure that everything is set correctly, especially the WEP/WPA/WPA2 password (this needs to be identical to that on your laptops in order for them to connect wirelessly - this would explain why they cannot connect via the other router). Refer to the router's documentation and make careful notes as you go on so that you can refer to them again if the need arises. Once you have got your laptops connecting, go back into the router configuration and choose the option to backup your settings. If the same thing happens again, you should be able to use this file to restore your router. Note that setting up a router needs to be done via a direct wired Ethernet connection.
To check all this, power down your router and wait 5 minutes. Power it back up. Are you still able to connect? If not, connect via Ethernet and restore your settings using the backup file you created earlier.
Another possibility is that your router automatically turns off the wireless output on power failure and that this needs to be manually re-enabled.

Another thought, maybe the router needs to be rebooted, we had storm weather here yesterday and even though I'd turned off the computers when the thunder and lightning started I didn't turn off the router.

We lost power a couple of times and when everything was fairly calm the computers went back on but my husband complained he couldn't connect, his machine is wireless and XP I'm wired and Vista

Looking at the router it's lights were on but the WLAN light which is usually blinking was steady along with the power and ADSL lights, I turned off the router waited a few seconds then turned it back on and everything was back to normal

Don't know if it would help but it was a thought on my part