Windows 7 Wireless service is not running

[steve b]

Hello, trying to fix sister's laptop. Dell Inspiron, Windows 7 home premium 64 bit, wireless card "Intel Wifi 5100 AGN";

Will start by saying that i went to intels website and got the drivers for this model, so its not a driver issue...

Now for the issue: When i attempt to connect to a network, it says "No connections are available." After running the diagnostic it says Wireless service is not running" and it errors when attempting to fix it. A wired connection works perfectly, just not the wireless. The card is recognized in device manager and everything is updated 100%. When i attempt to turn on WLAN Config in services.msc, it gives error 1068, and cannot start said service.

I have looked at many threads on many forums and they all seem to be for vista. I have tried the registry fixes to no avail and i do NOT want to reinstall windows 7 (because i would have to reinstall vista then reupgrade which i may not be able to do).

Please help

 

[Trouble]

Steve:
Try going here, you will notice that there is a driver (probably the one you downloaded) and also something called Intel® PROSet/Wireless WiFi Connection Utility for Windows 7 64-Bit* try downloading, installing and running that application and see if it provides any additional trouble shooting information
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Wireless+Networking&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+WiFi+Products&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+WiFi+Link+5300+and+Intel%c2%ae+WiFi+Link+5100+products

 

[steve b]

So i ran the tool and it failed the hardware test saying my wifi card isn't installed even though its in connection and device manager. So i decided to hit update driver and it "updated" it to the previous version. When i try to reinstall the new driver it just shuts down the setup -_-


anyways...failed hardware test

The main problem is not a hardware issue but the fact that windows wireless service isn't running. How the heck does this thing start up. If i have to reinstall there will be a very pissed windows customer (because i have a ghost installation and not a disc)