Windows Vista Internet Problems

I have a brand new Dell Inspiron 1420. It does not see any wireless networks when my older  Sony Vaio running XP  sees them immediately at boot up. I've tried to use both my Vista computer and my XP computer at the same time..side by side and the XP machine works great all the time even when the Vista machine has lost connection to the router.The drivers are updated. I fiddled with security options in Internet Explorer. I have a DSL wireless modem (it serves as a wireless accesspoint). I have a linksys router and it works fine

-Hard to detect wifi networks,
- If connected, signal level display is lower than neighbor laptops running XP,
- Vista drops the wifi regularly in indefinite intervals.

I guess the reason why it hasnt been widely published on the Internet is because they cant get on the internet.

A search on MS forums states: "After you configure Internet Connection Sharing in Windows Vista, you may find that, although the network connection works correctly at first, the network connection stops working after one-to-two hours. For example, you may be unable to connect to the Internet, to other computers on the local area network (LAN), or to network resources on the LAN. The cause: This problem occurs because of a bug in the WinSock bind() function".

There is no workaround, I have to telephone MS to get the hotfix.

I have a guess that this isn't a big deal because most people don't use Internet Connection Sharing. ICS requires that your computer touch the outside network via modem or second NIC for broadband. Since most Vista users to date are still early adopters (or at least ahead of the curve) most folks have broadband, and in turn most have a basic firewall/router (Linksys, Netgear, DLink, etc.) that shares the connection for you.

Therefore most Vista users probably have broadband and don't use ICS, so nobody's going to complain about this kind of a bug.

Most Internet connection problems under Windows Vista relate to out-of-date hardware. Vista has blown off a lot of old stuff with its newly coded methods and is really not very tolerant of old Internet hardware. If you call the hardware manufacturers they will lead you down a devious path, proving (apparently) that Vista is the problem. Don't believe them. They simply don't want to bear the cost of replacing their clunky old modems or routers. And certainly don't let them deceive you with a firmware update because you will still have the same old **** and you will still suffer with the same old piece of outdated junk

I can access sites normally over ethernet cable.