Networking Problems

[#1]

I'm new to networking, but have bought my wife a laptop for Christmas and have been trying to tie everything together, but have some problems.
Both my desktop PC and the laptop use XP, SP2, updated.
I've been using a Linksys WAG354G wireless gateway on my own PC, with a wired connection from PC to one of the ethernet ports on the Gateway, for a year or so now.
As Administrator, I installed a Linksys wireless notebook adapter into the laptop using the Linksys software supplied. It works fine, and if I log off, reboot, and logon as Admin, it works, and if I then switch to my wife's limited user account, it still works.
However, if I reboot, and login directly to my wife's account without going through the Admin logon, it doesn't work, nor will it work after switching (without rebooting) to the Admin account.
The adapter doesn't 'see' the Gateway at all, in fact it doesn't seem to fire-up, run, call it whatever. I can bring up the adapters control panel, go through the various tabs, but not operate any of the buttons in those tabs, it seems completely locked out.
Is this normal that the Admin has to log in first, then switch to the limited user account to allow that user to access the internet? Or should the limited user be able to access the internet by logging in on their own? If the latter, can someone please explain, in very simple terms, how to achieve this?
I am not at all conversant with assigning permissions, so nice and simple please.
Next problem.
The Gateway manual says

Quote

Since the Gateway has wireless capabilities, it can bridge your wired and wireless networks, letting them communicate with each other

That's what I thought it would do when I bought it, but can find no way of doing this. Can someone point me to a site with (very) simple directions for bridging the wired desktop PC and wireless laptop, preferably using something similar to the Linksys Gateway I have?

[#2]

First off, you might have to install the driver in your wifes account aswell as the admin. Some installers will only install into the active acount, while others make software available to all users.
With regards to the gateway, you probably need to login to it via a browser -The manual should have the logon details. However, I would of assumed that this was already setup in bridged mode to be honest. The big router makes normally realise that most people want to bridge their wired and wireless networks. To be certain, you would need to try pinging one computer from the other using their network ips - just be sure you have no firewall active at the time (you only need to establish that they can communicate at this point in time). Your router will have a firewall built in so don't worry about any attacks from the internet while you do this.

[#3]

You may have to give your wife admin rights first then login as here and install the drivers etc.
See if it works.
Log off as her and then remove the admins from her account and try again.
It depends what level the software is running at as to if a none admin can run it. If its using low level access then you may have to be admin to run it. You can run it from your wifes account by using runass and select admin.
Once it up and running you should be able to see each pc etc with no problem but you may need to go into file manager/folder options and untick simple file sharing on both pc.s

[#4]

Thanks to both of you for those suggestions, I shall try them out once the Christmas spirit has gone 

[#5]

We have a Linksys WAG354G here at home and have used one for well over a year. We have three PCs connected via cable, two laptops and a PS3 connected via WiFi, and all can see each other and all can see the internet.
The only things you have to do is first make sure your PC and Laptop are using the same ‘Workgroup’ and if you have firewalls on either machine the ‘Local network’ (for mine this is 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.200) is added as a trusted zone. You also need ‘File and Printer Sharing’ turned on and a partition or (better) a folder shared on one or both machines (otherwise there is nothing for the machines to ‘see’).
Other than that it should work ‘out of the box’.
With regards to your other problem I also have the same adapter in my notebook so if I get some free time will try setting up an extra account on it to see if I can replicate your problem with the drivers not starting.
Regards, P.

[#6]

Thanks Pendragon I'll try out your suggestions for the networking problem.
W.r.t. the 2 accounts accessing the notebook adapter, this has now been fixed as suggested here by creating the wife account as Admin, installing, then removing her Admin privileges, so that's OK now.

[#7]

Told ya