Earlier today I fired up the dinosaur that has XP on it and tried to 
enable internet connection sharing.  However I kept getting error 
messages and wasted too much time on it.  After wasting a couple of 
hours researching and trying solutions that didn't work.  So I decided 
to reinstall xp on the dinosaur.  That fixed the problem.  Then I 
installed kubuntu 12.04 on this machine then installed ndiswrapper.  
Next I installed the xp driver for the usb adapter.  Then I plugged in 
the usb adapter.  Then the system displayed all the wireless networks it 
found.  I selected the correct one  and it works.  I'm using the kubuntu 
installation to write this.  In fact, everything worked without a hitch 
once I got windows out of the way.

Thanks to those of you who pointed me in the right direction.