Windows 7 forum: Windows explorer not responding, disables wireless adapter

OK--I have a Dell Inspiron 570 with an AMD Athlon II X4 Processor, 3.10 GHz. It has 6Gigs of installed memory and is working on a 64-bit operating system. This Windows 7 Home premium.

I have not found any rhyme or reason to when/why it farts out. Sometimes its fine, sometimes it won't work for more than 30 seconds at a time. I know it's happening because the internet stops doing anything, but if I check, everything still is reporting back fine. Then about 10 seconds later, the little bars symbol in the bottom right stops being all white and shows all white with a yellow exclamation point. Then, if I click on it to open the connections, it opens and says it is still connected to my network, but there is no network connectivity. At that point, all my other wireless devices are still fine. If I left click on the available connections, it takes a second and then says "windows explorer is not responding." I select restart. It thinks about the problem but can't come up with a solution, so I hit cancel. It restarts explorer. Then the little symbol says "no network connections are available." if i open up network and sharing center and go to change adapter settings, it lists my wireless adapter as "disabled." Sometimes, all i have to do is hit "enable" and it goes. Most of the time, i hit enable and unplug the adapter and replug it, and it's good to go. Sometimes, no matter what I do, it stays disabled.
I have a 25mbps wireless, and it works fine on literally every other wireless device (the apple tv, one toshiba laptop, one apple laptop, an ipad, 2 iphones, a kindle, etc).
I hope this helps you! Like I said, I'm not super computer literate (mostly because usually I make my husband handle it) but I can learn. Let me know what else you need...
Thanks!

- The first thing to do: try in the Guest account.
- The second thing to do: try in a new Windows account.
What do you find?

Kees