Hi,
I was just surfing this site and saw your question and thought that I would join and let you know something that i have found with wireless nic's and windows xp.
When you install the hardware drivers you need to configure a windows app aswell.... When i installed the drivers for the card it ran a simple wizzard where i could enter a wep encryption key etc....
I would remove the drivers and reinstall them, and hopefully this wizzard will run