Hon, we did and they gave use a bunch of commands...release..reset yada yada... After all that it did not work. They said it was a Windows problem...which I'm sure Johnnie, as much as you
like Windows you may agree.
It's a grudge match now. I bought the (xp) on ebay that year for very little. It worked fine last year (hardwired) and this year it worked okay on a wireless adapter, for a day or so, until I took the adapter back upstairs to put back on another computer..After that, I got a 169...on the adapter connection on it,as well.
I think you need to go to the device manager and delete the wireless adapter from the list (if it's still there), then go to network places and create a NEW network connection that uses the hardwired connection. It appears that the machine is trying to use the wireless adapter to get to the network and it ain't there any more...
If this isn't a laptop (doesn't sound like it is) then ther eis a chance that it is having problems recognizing that the hardware has changed....;-))