OK. Banged this out quickly so can post what's going on. (not alot of proof reading so bear with it please)
Will followup with what next (which i hope proves what otherwise seems to fit the problem history so well)
So here’s the history and problem.. to fill in the blank.
Of course still needs to be tested!
Something wasn’t making sense to me. When I read post #59 couple days ago it heightened a suspicion you later confirmed for me: I had an underlying fact wrong causing my approach to be a bit off path which i noticed when veered too much!
1. Started troubleshooting by first asking to uninstall the 2 devices (pretty standard 1st step)
- Audio Bus controller (named MS UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio) and
- Sigmatel sound card
2. You reported both devices kept re-appearing. I said no problem and explained
a. Windows periodically scans to check for hardware change to its current config
- Device detection doesn’t depend on drivers. No matter if device drivers are good or not
. - The 2 uninstalled devices re-appear when hardware scanned and they’re detected
b. Upon device detection, Windows then looks for a device driver. But we just uninstalled driver.. So is to be expected for Windows to report the device (because it's still detected) and say it's not working (cause it can't find the driver)
3. The events just described are pretty common in Windows. So to be expected after uninstalling the drivers, right? Well,….. that depends!
4. Windows needs something called the “driver install file” to provide it instructions on how and what files should be installed.
5. Sigmatel sound card. When a vendor provides a driver (e.g. via Dell driver downloads or via the CD that came with new hardware) the vendor file is commonly called “the driver” but technically its really “the driver install package” as the vendor packages many needed things into the file:
- the driver install file (install instructions for what’s to follow)
- the driver files (the set of files to be installed all of which together make the driver)
- Other (such as Control Panel applet to allow user to control/configure the driver)
When new hardware is detected and you’re prompted for location of the driver, you’re really just pointing windows to the location of the install file which tell it the rest it need know.
When new hardware is detected and Windows tries to automatically install the driver, it fails as it doesn’t know where to go find the install file
So is normal and expected when we: uninstall Sigmatel sound card then see Windows detect it but the driver installation fails so the sound card device is reported as Not Working.
6. Audio Bus Controller. So after uninstalling the Bus Controller we’d expect the same? And then also expect Windows say it's Not Working, right?
NO! I had forgot something and that was my error.
It’s a different case when Windows provides the default driver for a device (and recall that MS updates were released that are applied to XP SP1 and XP SP2 to add this driver to the Windows system library).
So when this device is re-detected Windows knows where to find the install file as it keeps its own copy of it tucked away along with other things needed to complete driver installation.
But I had been proceeding under the assumption that BOTH drivers weren’t working
=> Which I later realized and had you double check and sure enough the Audio Bus is working and the sound card is not working which are, in fact, what I should have expected!!
==> And in all fairness, I probably bashed the InstallShield when I thought what it was doing vs. result was out of whack! (I take back what I said about it, for now, but not gonna retest)
So what the heck is the problem??? This is the real irony AND I’m going out a limb as I’ve written all this explanation as I think it now fits like a glove to my corrected theory but of course none of it’s proven yet
I don’t think
ANYTHING was wrong with the old drivers. Altho problems is those drivers is the almost obvious and natural guess for anyone to have. Uninstalling those drivers was standard 1st step but what follwed became, in part, a red herring tho did lead to "looking innocent" other problems we went on to fix
And we fixied all the other problems but one without too much trouble. But the one about
MS Kernel Audio which I initially guessed as a side-effect of the problems with other two drivers. After lots of Googling through the internet (not much detail) and eventually focusing on Microsoft’s own site and finally something meaningful in the Windows Developer;s Kit :
I think this has been the problem the whole time!
Not certain what package/when this and other media libraries get loaded but THEY’RE NOT PART OF THE STANDARD XP INSTALL YOU PUT ON YOUR MACHINE when you reinstalled. So it is THIS driver that's actually failing (parts missing) and making all the other sound stuff fail tho it appears at the user level as a sound driver problem which of course implies its Sigmatel sound card
/* EDIT */
Added note: so part of the problem is how MS has this packaged and does dependencies as one can reinstall XP followed by MS updates and have this unknown "hole" remain invisible and underneath it all