Skeptik said:
No error given, it just does nothing when i click on the internet access icon. I checked through the network diagnostics and i can see the name, signal strength etc of assorted wifi routers on this street being given correctly, so presumably hardware is fine and driver is working.

Computer has just been moved into this area for the first time, and was working fine prior to move.

The owner had noticed it was suddenly very slow beforehand, which sounds like it was updating.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the wireless adapter, no effect. Works fine via ethernet.

The owner doesn't know how windows 10 got on the computer in the first place, and i'm not very familiar with it myself.
After trying many different methods to get the WiFi available networks to display I found a short term solution to display and connect to the wireless networks. It appears that while logged in under you local account you can’t not get the available wireless networks to display or connect to them. However, if you log out of your user account, and from the lock screen click on the WiFi icon in the right corner of the screen. The available wireless networks will populate and then allow you to connect. After ti connect to the network, then you can login to your computer and remain connected. The only problem with this solution , is that you will have to log out to connect to diffent wireless networks each time.