Shoutbox

Earlier today, I installed the Microsoft Broadband Networking Utility (from the microsoft website) on my Windows XP (Service Pack 2) computer so I could keep an eye on my wireless network easily.
This software usually comes bundled with Microsoft Wireless Networking equipment but I thought this wasn't necessary to run the software so I installed it anyways.
After the installation, I restarted my PC to find that all my system icons had vanished besides the power, bluetooth and my webcam icons.
Most of my Microsoft/Windows software wouldn't work either such as Windows Installer, System Restore wasn't working either such as not displaying restore points yet I knew I had some for that day as I set one before installing the MSBNU. Also my Sound card wasn't working nor detecting by my computer.
After all that, I had to put my System Recovery disk and start from scratch, lookly everything was backed up.

Now a couple of questions;
1. Do you need Microsoft Wireless Hardware to run this software?
2. Would this software be the cause of this system failure?
3. Would because I wasn't running Microsoft Wireless Hardware with the application cause this failure?

Thanks,
Hyped