I have a fugitsu Lifebook... same problem here. Seems when it happens, I can get it working again by shutting the radio off and turning itback on again. Weirdly though, the quicklaunch icon shows that the connection is now local and intarweb, but when I click on it to see the available access points, they all still show as local only.

Not only that, but it also seems to forget I have a fingerprint scanner every once in a while. Seems Vista has a few problems with device support. Good luck