Dr Yes........

your picture is exactly what i am talking about.......

you see the words.. Wireless Network Connections?

...those are the ones i want to change back to that.......

i dont think its anything more than a header or title that's generated by windows 7.....

ive done everything.... even gone into the registry, found the name i changed it into, replaced those words with what i wanted..... rebooted.... and still...... same thing.......... no change........

i'm probably a few days away from my wits end, where i back up everything on another laptop, and then just re install windows all over again......

thank you for your help.....

gh

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!!!

...being a curious guy and always tweaking something or other... i happened to be in windows task manager...... actually, i was in there to shut down outlook that froze when i was backing up to a pst file... before i reloaded my entire system.......

and just by change, i click on the networking tab.......

and what do i see at the bottom...... adapter names...... and guess what names were in there? the names i had changed by accident and kept appearing everywhere, including as headings in the "internet connections' box that pops up when you click on those little internet connection bars in the system tray....

anyways, i renamed my network adapters.... and the problem is now solved..

my registry checks out, my task manager checks out, i am still connected to the internet and home networks....

all is good......

something so simple and so many days of frustration

THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR ALL OF YOUR POSTS, IDEAS, SUGGESTIONS......

(i am thinking somebody along the way suggested how to do this, but said it was changing the name of a connection, and that wasn't what i wanted, but the process actually changed the name of my adapter, so i guess credit where credit is due)

THANKS AGAIN, GREAT FORUM

GH