I have been using a D-Link USB wireless adapter on my laptop along with a D-Link wireless router connected to a cable modem. The setup works fine except every so often when I boot up my laptop the wireless USB icon does not appear in the system tray and I cannot bring up the USB utility program which shows signal strength, site survey info,settings, etc.

Usually when I reboot it runs fine. When it doesn't run I look in the Device Manager and see an "Unknown Device" with a red X through it under the Universal Serial Bus Contollers. Also listed is a PCI to USB Universal Host Controller and a USB Root Hub with no X's. I highlight the "Unknown Device" and do a Remove and reboot and is OK but some number of reboots later it will reappear. I have removed and reinstalled the USB wireless device drivers and utility program with no resolution. I am not using a USB hub. Any ideas?

Make sure your card connections are clean and it's plugged in correctly. Go to admin service and double click on wireless zero configuration. Stop the service and then start it. Make sure it is set to automatic. In the LOG ON tab, insure local system account is selected and that the "allow service to interact with desktop is NOT selected. Reboot w/o the card installed. After inserting the card, you should see the connection within 30 seconds. If this doesn't work you may have a problem with the RPC for this service.