COLGeek:
Problem solved! Thanks for your recommended fix, which worked fine when I realized why the exec "hung". I downloaded the intel.com drivers on the wrong machine initially, namely my regular desktop computer (W7), and opened the drivers on it, instead of my Toshiba XP laptop. It's no surprise that the setup exec didn't work. I realized my mistake the next morning, and transferred over the zipped driver s/w to my laptop, and it opened and loaded everything without a problem, and the wifi connection is working fine now. Apparently the Toshiba customer support person was talking nonsense, when she said that only Toshiba C/S could provided the digital signature to make the wireless connection work. Thanks for saving me $100!!
retiredlucky
P.S. I also loaded System Mechanic to keep my XP system clean and efficient, hopefully. They also said that using SM should keep my XP system going and serve as a proxy for Windows s/w upgrades. Hope they're right