elenoa, welcome to the community,
I actually use that adapter for long distance and I have various other ones.
It was real fun getting it working in windows 7. Are you getting the driver off of a disc or are you downloading it from the Realtek site? The driver for windows 7 is 6.1316.1209.2009 dated 12/09/09. The xp driver won't work. Windows won't automatically install it because the driver isn't digitally signed and windows 7 refuses to use the Realtek Lan utility. When it's correctly installed, windows network and sharing center will show two sets of connections. The strongest set will be the Alfa. Then you disable the internal card in device manager and windows will manage the Alfa connection.
How I had to install it was to plug the adapter in and windows shows new hardware. Don't let it install automatically. I had the driver disc in an external dvd drive and I manually pointed windows to the drive. If you are downloading he driver then have the windows installer point to the folder where you downloaded the driver. Windows 7 protests the whole time.
It wouldn't work at all in access connections, I had to disable access connections and use windows network and sharing center to get it to work.
You're right, works perfect in xp and I could use the utility. I wish I could get the utility to install in windows 7.
You do have the wireless turned on, right?
Ok, try this. Turn off the laptop. Unplug the Alfa. Turn the laptop back on. Plug in the Alfa. Windows should install it if it hasn't already. Right click the windows network in the taskbar. Click, open network and sharing center, Click connect or disconnect, it should bring up a list of network connections. Click on the one that you want and connect to it.
It really sounds like there's a problem with the driver being that diagnostics says that. The driver that I listed above works for the alfa 1 watt adapter as well as the Gsky 500 mw adapters that I have. There's no hidden way to turn it on that I know of, when it's installed properly, it just takes over and turns itself on.
When you open network and sharing center from the icon in the task bar and you click on connect or disconnect, what exactly comes up? What does it say?
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=95
You might want to follow any replies to this post. It seems you're not the only one having problems with the Edge and an Alfa.
He says that the Alfa won't even turn on if the wireless card is turned off.
Let's try one more thing. without the Alfa plugged in, re-enable the internal wireless card. Then shut the Edge down. Plug in the Alfa and turn the Edge back on. Down in the taskbar, open the network and sharing center and see if there are two sets of networks to connect to. If there are, the strongest is the alfa. Click on the one you want to connect and see if it connects. Then on the left, click change adapter settings. Disable the internal wireless card. See if the alfa is still connected.
Let me know if this works or doesn't work.
Dave
