Wireless adapter problems on Acer Laptop after November 2012 Microsoft Update (Windows 8)

On Tuesday, November 13, 2012, Microsoft released 6 security bulletins in their regular 'Patch Tuesday'.
After installing the bulletins and rebooting my Acer V3-571 laptop which is running Windows 8 Pro (64-bit) I found that I no longer had a wireless connection to my network. The Wireless Network Adapter in this laptop is an  Atheros AR5BWB222. The device manager showed that the device was having a problem:

The Windows 8 Device manager showing an exclamation mark against the wireless adapter.

Further, the properties of the device showed that the device was unable to start.
Attempting to update the driver reported that the latest driver was already installed - even connecting to a wired network and allowing the Device Manger to search the internet for a better driver was unsuccessful. The solution is to visit the Acer website at www.acer.com, go to the  support section and choose driver downloads.
Enter either your computer model number (in my case V3-571), or the serial number from the sticker which you will find on your machine.
Choose the 'drivers' tab and locate the driver for the Atheros Wireless LAN  (see the screenshot below)

The driver download page on the Acer website, www.acer.com

The properties of the wireless device show that it is unable to start.

The driver is 37Mb in size and comes as a zip file. Save it to your hard drive and, once the download is complete, extract the zip file to a folder. (It may be a good idea to download all the drivers for your computer and store them in case you need them when you don't have access to the internet)

Back in the device properties window, choose the 'Driver' tab and click the 'Update Driver' button. When you are prompted 'How do you want to search for driver software?' choose 'Browse my computer for driver software' and navigate to the folder into which you extracted the zip file.

Follow the wizard to completion and the driver will be installed.

Check the device manager and you should now no longer see the exclamation mark against the wireless adapter.

Open up the network connections screen and enable the wireless device if necessary.

Reconnect to the wireless network as normal (you will need to enter your wireless password when prompted).

You should now have wireless access to your network and the internet.

I hope this helps you get back online - let me know in the comments how you get on!

Comments #

Hannan Ahmad: If there are problems with the wireless network, then you should update or reinstall the drivers for the network card. If the problem is with the update then wait for the new update to come, and then install the updates by joining the DSL/Ethernet cable to the computer. http://www.cnetsys.com/network-services/network-support/it-support-locations/detroit-it-support/

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