I was installing a new router today behind my Uverse router/Gateway since Uverse's router sucks donkey balls.

To make my life a little easier, I configured the wireless on the new router to match the old wireless settings (Same SSID and passcode). Everything in the house reconnected fine except I noticed some display stuff I didn't like on my Vista laptop. On the Network and Sharing Center screen, for the network it said <SSID 2> (<SSID>) Private network. I didn't like that. I wanted it to just say <SSID>. I monkeyed around a little bit and found the Merge or Delete Network locations link from the Set Network location screen. I was kinda shocked EVERY network i had ever connected to was listed there and in fact the <SSID 2> and <SSID> were also listed. So I went through and deleted all of them and figured Windows would just recreate them as it needed to. For my wired connection, it did that fine. Although for my wireless it didn't.

When i connect to my wireless, instead of having the SSID listed on the Network and Sharing screen, it says Unidentified Network (Public). Everything under ipconfig is as it should be but I can't access the internet. I tried changing it to Private but that didn't nothing more then allowing my computer to see other devices on my network. I went back into the Merge or Delete Network Locations and the wireless connection isn't listed.

As a test, I configured the Uverse router with a new SSID (called it Fix) and connecting to that works fine (I'm on it to post this). So I am guessing there is a piece of data hidden someplace that is preventing Vista from writing a new NetworkList profile and signature in the registry. Any ideas on how to fix?