Issue's with inspirion 8600 wireless after installing Vista

I was given this laptop by a friend a while back and I put more memory in to upgrade it from XP to vista it ran smooth on it , Now it will not connect through the wireless adapter and it keeps saying a PCI modem driver is missing . Before you start posting links I have already been to Dell.com and downloaded the drivers. I assume it's a Vista issue how can i fix this ?

 

have you tried to manually install the driver ?

Goto the hardware manager, right click on the modem and choose update driver and see if it will manually install

It should be showing the device with an error indicated for it right now if the driver is not working

 

Here's the problem your talking about Modem driver and that is totally different from Wifi drivers. I think you downloaded the right drivers but got the wrong one instead as your statement clearly states you downloaded MoDem driver not the wifi drivers. So your confusing two totally different hardware with each other. Modem and Wifi drivers are not the same drivers. Make sure you type your Service tag in at the Dell site and get the ethernet/wifi driver not the modem driver. That is why it says it doesn't connect with the wifi. And also if you can provide your Service Tag that would help others reading to know what drivers your talking about as well.