Control of wireless connections in XP - conflict

I've got a wireless adapter that came with software. It works fine. My problem is that for some reason XP seems to think that it should control the net connection. So I get the "Network connections" window asking me how I want to connect, even though the wireless adapter has connected. This window appears to convince my browser that I am not online, so it doesn't load a page unless I cancel it, at which point the browser will load the page rather than telling me that it can't find the page. The net connection window pops up at random times once I am already connected using the adapter. How do I tell XP that I don't want this window? Sorry if this makes no sense.