I am installing the 64 bit version of windows so that may be the difference between your setup and mine.
I have Win 7 Home Premium x64, so it's not that. And if it's not your mobo/BIOS not recognising it, then I'm at a loss as to why yours is not being installed.
I double checked in Device Manager to see if mine was installed correctly, etc, and it is... see below for driver details, etc.
As you can see, my Netgear WG111v2 is installed correctly in Win 7 x64. It may be the driver version that makes the difference, though the 6.1308. 1226. 2007 ones pictured above were updated/installed by Windows Update after first boot. So obviously my copy of Win 7 detected the card during setup.
This isn't usually within my field of knowledge, but it may be that you need to check the BIOS to ensure the card is still being detected there, and possibly perform a BIOS update if not. Also, the USB port chosen, was it USB 1.1 or 2.0? Just guessing here, but Win 7 may require higher (than XP) and may not have been able to detect it on a lower port speed?
The guy who would know best is yrag. If he doesn't respond here, you might try sending him a PM... just find his nick next to a post he's done (Personal Computing is usually the best place to look) and click the PM option.
Anyway, I hope you get it sorted soon.... Win 7 is like heaven to use, compared to XP.