Jim,
Thanks for posting your question. This forum is more geared toward Cisco enterprise wireless. I think you’ll have better luck in the Cisco Home community forum for wireless adapters. Try reposting your question here:
http://homecommunity.cisco.com/t5/Wireless-Adapters/bd-p/Wireless_Adapters
And FWIW, yes, definitely download and install a newer adapter driver (from here: http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/lbc/wusb54g/download). Wireless technology is under constant revision and improvement and we typically see much better results when clients are running newer drivers. Even if the upgrade doesn’t fix your IP addressing issue, your wireless adapter is likely to perform and behave much better once it is fixed.
Justin