Thanks - sorry to have impugned you! Oddly enough, out of the blue yesterday the system started to work. I had updated the driver and done everything else suggested to no avail. I'm not sure why it started to work - I've not installed any Windows updates,
not fixed the router nor anything else; which is worrying.
In case it's any use, though, on reflection, there was one minor incident. I am working on a 3G wifi router (I'm writing software from a boat in Greece - somebody has to!). I've recently changed ISP and gone from Vodafone to Cosmote. The problem seemed to
start at about that time (though not exactly at that time, at first the Cosmote device worked fine as did Vodafone's) - and for both devices (the Vodafone contract had some days left when I changed). On Friday I tried to connect to the Vodafone device and
it brought up a screen to show its contract had now expired (asking me to log in rather than bringing up the browser). That was when I realised that I was again getting wifi connectivity.
So I wonder whether this is some sort of caching or persistence problem in Windows 8.1. Perhaps if it fails for whatever reason to get a DNS connection it "remembers" that, even if the machine is turned off and rebooted, and then steadfastly refuses to
reconnect. If that cache is time-limited, it will eventually expire and then the system will start to work again. That would also explain why people report that applying a fix works for a few days then fails again.
This makes me more sure that this problem is Microsoft based. Either they've got some errant code whereby this cached value remains even across a connection session, or they've mis-directed their wifi card suppliers and told them to persist some value in
Windows 8.1. That would explain why going back to a previous level fixes it.
Networks - spawn of the devil!