[RESOLVED] Windows 7 Networking Issue

Hello all.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1440 running Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-bit that's having a serious issue with networking and I'm needing a fresh set of eyes on the issue.

The dialog box that shows the list of available wireless networks won't appear either from the icon in the Notification Area or through the Network and Sharing Center applet.

Let me run through the things I've done so far:

- The wireless NIC is enabled.
- There is no hardware switch for enabling/disabling the WNIC anywhere on the chassis. The interesting thing that happened with this though is that when I booted up Ubuntu from a flash drive to test the card under a different OS, Ubuntu reported that the hardware switch was tripped but this could just be a default reported error from its networking services.
- The wired NIC works.
- Device Manager doesn't report any problems with the WNIC.
- The Network Connection Troubleshooter doesn't detect any problems with the WNIC.
- The WNIC is enabled in the BIOS.
- Virus scans on the system come back clean. Programs like MBAM, ComboFix, and HitmanPro all come back clean. The other oddity to note here is that MSSE is installed on the system and reports that it's turned off. I'm currently unable to turn it on and the error it reports is extremely vague.
- SFC finds corrupted files but is unable to fix them and dumps the log at exactly 50%. This happened several times so I could verify the stopped area and it's 50% every time.
- The current WNIC drivers are installed on the system. Reinstalling the device in the system doesn't fix the problem.

I'm half inclined to believe that there is some serious OS corruption here and that a reinstallation of Windows is required however I was wondering if anyone else knew something about it.

Thanks in advance.

is the wireless switch not one of the 'fn' buttons

its fn + f2 as shown here

I should've been a little more specific.

When I said hardware switch I meant a physical toggle switch near the left-front or left side of the chassis. Those are more common than aggregate function keys seen on the 1440. I am well aware of the wifi toggle key and pressing that didn't help anything.

Ultimately I decided to just do a factory restore. I ran out of time to work on it and went with the Windows fix-all. Thanks for your suggestions.