Wireless Adapter Must Be Reinstalled After Any Changes

I have a USB wireless adapter that works very well...until I make any kind of change to my network adapters. For example:

If I install VirtualBox or VMware (both of which install virtual network adapters), my wireless adapter stops working and must be reinstalled. (It has a yellow exclamation in Device Manager and Windows claims it can't find a driver for it.)

If I switch from my wireless adapter to my wired adapter (by shutting down, removing the wireless adapter, attaching an Ethernet cable and restarting), the wired adapter works fine. But when I switch back to my wireless adapter (by shutting down, removing the Ethernet cable, re-attaching the wireless adapter and restarting) then once again my wireless adapter stops working and must be reinstalled. (It has a yellow exclamation in Device Manager and Windows claims it can't find a driver for it.)

This doesn't make sense. I should not have to reinstall my wireless adapter every time I make a change.

Can anyone recognize what's going wrong here?

Would help to know make/model of adapter and computer also.

Thanks for your help.

The computer is a Dell Studio XPS 8100 desktop with an integrated Broadcom 57780 Ethernet chip. My wireless adapter is an Asus USB-N53. Both have the most up-to-date drivers from Broadcom and MediaTek, respectively. My wireless router is also by Asus.

This hardware has worked very well for years. My not-so-well educated guess is that virtual drivers from either VirtualBox or VMware are the cause of this problem, even though both applications are removed.

Don't know why VirtualBox or VMware would cause the problem unless it has something to do with being a USB adapter. I've used VMware for years and never caused your problem. Have it installed right now in fact.

Have you checked their forums?