Strange things are happening.
I came back to read new replies. I followed the link that Rudi posted but I decided to take Dave's advice and went back into CP > Taskbar . . . to set it to stop displaying the Network (cabled) icon. While doing so, I got a Windows message saying that Windows Explorer had stopped working. After clearing that error message I went back to CP and found the wifi icon displayed instead of the network icon. I cleared out of that. Lo and behold . . . the bars are back.
I never followed the steps in the link Rudi sent.
I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to name this system and set up a 401k for it.
![Flee :flee:](./images/smilies/flee.gif)