in a nutshell, im not able to actually go and help her at the moment, but it appears her router is faulty which happens to be a built in router/adsl modem at the same time and she bought a airport express, without realising it was built in modem.

is there anyway she can skip the router part of her dlink ( dshit ) and use the wifi through her modem part of the dhsit?


UPDATE = She has now gone and bought a new adsl modem a dlink dsl 502 t, and for the love of apple, she connects it up with the express and STILL cannot get airport utility to scan and recognize the device from her laptop.

im absouetly stumped what to do, and her mood is something i want to avoid
we are both frustrated because this is supposed to be a simple set up.

if mactalk can help me ill be forever grateful, if we cant work it tonight she will return it and telling her to buy any future apple product will be a nightmare.

she has a
airport express
dlink dsl 502
windows xp SP2

problem, airport utlitiy does not recognize express.

Certainly: Virtually every DSL modem with a built-in router can have the internal router disabled by setting it to "bridged mode" -- in short, all of the modem/router's smarts are disabled, raw ADSL signal goes in one end, and a single raw ethernet connection comes out the other.

There's several people here with Express boxes hooked up to an otherwise-smart modem-router combo that's had an electronic lobotomy

bump, as situation has been updated, and changed as per original post.

Maybe just reset the AE using the paperclip in the little hole technique. Then scan for it. If it really will not show up you can only try and try again.

Try to find it without anything plugged into it, then put the ethernet in.

Fingers crossed it works.

What about Firewalls?
Can you see an "Apple Network xxxxx" wifi network in her Wireless Connection Utility?

shes done a scan for apple netork within her own pc utility and stilll dosent show.

does she have it connected with ethernet to set it up?
If not, try connecting via ethernet to configure the Express first, then disconnect ethernet and try to pick up the network via wireless

yes we really only tried so far with hooking the AX to the modem through ethernet.

if it wont work through that, i dont think itll do so wireless.
could it be faulty?

What are the signs & symptoms of the old router failure? Could it be the 'puter's network card?

the reason we decided to get a new router, was her old dlink, was a modem and router built into one.

and she constantly had internet dropouts, im unsure who she is with, but i dont think its the service provider, so we decided to replace the units.

i currently got a time capsule and had no problems setting it up in airport utility, but i just dont understand why she has problems.

when the laptop is connected directly to the modem, through ethernet, she has internet ( and no dropouts )

Did you try timothys suggestion of resetting with a paperclip? My dads time machine cracked the sads and I couldn't find it with the airport utility but the reset fixed it.

we are about to give the whole thing another go pretty soon, ill be resetting it again, first thing ill do
ill keep updated see how we go.