Hi Joe
I deleted my previous response, because I uninstalled the Wireless software/drive and reinstalled using the custom option. When I selected an additional option the proset tools came back, and importantly the Connection utility was also installed.
However, the problem still persists, even when the Connection utility is controlling the wifi. That is, all the available connections have the 'connect automatically' option checked.
The current wireless software and driver version is: Wireless 15.8.0 64 bit version. Unfortunately not sure what the previous version was but likely it would have been the most recent previous version as I'm very active in updating drivers.