wireless internet/networking

I just bought a Dell XPS M1210 running vista. I'm trying to connect it to the wireless network in my house. After an hour of cunfusing prompts leading me in circles i decided that i just don't have the knowledge to do this.
First i try to connect to the network (the laptops wireless card found it) then it gives me this message saying "The wireless authentication settings on this computer do not match the requirements of this network." whatever that means...i assumed it meant that my computer simply wasn't recognized as a registered device in the network or something. So i opened up the "manually connect to a network" window and type in the name/password and such then click to the next step where it tells me that "there's already a network with that name", i procede to click the "connect to" button where it gives me the same message from the beginning. How do i add a computer to a network?

 

This should be in the Wireless section.

 

On your port setting, turn off IP6, nothing is using this at the moment. Temp turn off your FW. or add a new trusted zone for your network.

 

I believe that means your laptop is trying to connect using something like WEP and your router is using WPA authentication methods. Be sure that they're both using the same! Otherwise it'll not work. And also, WPA and WPA2 are different, and TKIP and AES are different too. Make sure you set both devices to use the EXACT same authentication method.

Hope this helps!

 

I had a similar probelm yesterday with a new Acer laptop. When I contacted Acer they told me my router was old adn needed a firmware update. I IM'd Verizon DSL and they took control of my desktop and downloaded the new firmware for my router and the laptop now works fine.