whitenred,   Start with the notebook system utility and the chipset drivers and follow the list. Things should start working.   Rick
Hello Yesterday my father asked me to reinstall windows after making complete mess of his laptop. After formatting the hard drives and installing the Vista operating system a problem occured. After installing the drivers from the Dell Drivers CD I can't make the wireless internet working. Windows keeps giving me the "Windows needs to install driver software for your network controller" message. I have googled the whole internet, did everything from the "PLEASE READ FIRST" thread and still had no success. I would really appreciate some help, thank you 
Inspiron 1720 wireless internet connection problem