Wireless not recognized all of a sudden

[SDAutoXr]

OK, Newbie to this board as I was searching the net for some help.  I'm not computer literate although I somehow was able to build my own machine from scratch about 6 years ago.

I bought a Compaq Presario F700 (F730US) in Dec 2007 for my teenage daughter and have been pretty handsoff as she seems to know more than me (not saying much) which is probably my first mistake.

The problem is it doesn't recognize any wireless networks at all, as though it doesn't have wireless capabilities at all as of about 2 weeks ago.  It worked fine prior. I know our home network is fine as my work laptop connects to it automatically. 

I have updated Windows Vista with all the available updates since she had never done this.  It still is not recognizing anything wireless.  I currently have it hard wired to our wireless router to get here.

I believe this problem started shortly after she downloaded a program called "Limewire" which her cousin has and "has never had a problem with it".  I notice this was installed on 7/3/09.  Interestingly a couple of other prgrams appear to have been installed the same day.  They are:

Zwangi1.0build115
Music Oasis
My.Freeze.com Toolbar
RelevantKnowledge
Winferno Registry Power Cleaner

I do not believe she purposely downloaded these outside of limewire.  Just seems too coincidental that our problems seemed to start at the same time.  I was going to uninstall all of the above and just would like someone more knowledgable to offer their advice as I try to fix this.

Any help is appreciated.

[Mulreay]

Try going into control panel then click on classic view on the left. Go into device manager and find network adapters. Open network adapters and you should see your wireless adapter there. Right click on the wireless adapter and uninstall it. Then do a full restart to re-install it automatically. Then re-try connecting to the network
Let me know how you get on 

[SDAutoXr]

Mulreay - thanks for the response.  I'm looking at Network adapters and it is only showing NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mpbs Ethernet (which is what I'm hard wired thru now).  It does not show any wireless adapters although it is built into the machine. 

I have uninstalled all the software noted above in the meantime. Installed Avast Anti-virus, and Ad-Aware anti-spyware, run scans and deleted the few items each came up with upon scanning.

There is a switch for wireless on the front of this laptop, but the light stays on regardless of switch position.  I get the feeling now that the wireless adpater is completely on the fritz.

What would be the best way to remedy? Any thoughts on this are appreciated. 

[Mulreay]

Ok let's try this. Click on Start the MS sphere in the bottom left 'type in a search for network and sharing centre you should not need to type the full thing before it shows up, click on it. On this page look in the left margin for manage NETWORK connections..... NOT wireless connections right click on the wireless adapter and see if you can enable it from there.
Have a go with that and let me know how your getting on