Control Panel gone loony

[Gary R.]

I seem to have overburdened Vista (Home premium) by a major hardware
change...switching monitors 8^). Well, perhaps just coincidental, but
that's when it happened anyway.

I went to open control panel to uninstall google updater, and first got a
message that my audio driver was not Vista compatible. It's an AC97 and had
the Vista drivers from Realtek's site installed and has been working for
weeks without a hitch. I re-downloaded and reinstalled, but still got the
same message...when I open control panel, an error box comes up and tells me
the audio driver is not designed for Windows Vista (with an accompanying
beep from the working sound system...)

So I uninstalled the Realtek drivers and rebooted, and Vista told me it
needed to install drivers, which I let it do, and all was fine. But open
control panel, and 'bing' same old error message. Went to device manager
and the sound, told it to update drivers, it told me that I was already
using the best driver for my system and everything was just peachy.

Still, every time I go to control panel, 'bing', error message about audio
driver not designed for Vista; there is no "shut up and don't annoy me with
this worthless message again" box to check, and it seems there is no fix for
whatever Vista thinks is wrong. There is only an 'OK' box, when it's not
'OK', what I want to click is 'shut up you moron'.

But it gets worse. I tried to click the 'Programs and features' icon and
up pops the problem reports (after of course annoying me with the 'sound'
error box). I click 'sound' and get the security center. I click 'scanners
and cameras' and sometimes get windows update, of course always accompanied
by the nice sound error box. Other times I click an icon in CP and get
nothing, but then I click a blank area and get the sound error box, followed
by some seemingly-random CP task, maybe a previous one I clicked but didn't
get, or maybe a new surprise one, but seldom the one I want.

Biostar Nvidia Nforce 410 board with an onboard 6100 video, all drivers whql
from Nvidia's site, device manager shows all is well. Both the audio error
messages and the bizarre control panel behavior were noticed starting when I
switched monitors (plug and play, no software installed).

I just finally went ahead and activated this stupid thing a few days ago,
after it seemed all was OK; now it decides to mess up. I'm glad I put it on
an extra computer, not one I need to work reliably. Makes me appreciate XP.

Gary

 

[Steve Easton]

Has Vista detected the new monitor and is it displaying the proper one in device manager?

If not delete the improper entry and reboot.

 

[Gary R.]

Yes, it recognized it correctly and is the only one that shows. The monitor
may just be coincidental, as it's just when I noticed all this.

I can run the control panel applets from the Run command, for example if I
type in appwiz.cpl I get the add/remove programs, etc. and no error message.
I can also click on them in the system 32 folder, and none give me any
problem except mscui.cpl, which is the security one; with that, I get the
"your audio driver is not vista...etc." notification, just as if I start the
control panel itself from anywhere; but then it does open.

Nowhere else do I get that message about the sound driver, and the sound
works fine; reinstalling the driver has no effect. Nothing else seems to be
affected, that is I get what I click on in everything but the control panel,
either in the default view or the classic view. There, I may click on
something and get something else, or have nothing happen until I click a
blank spot, then I eventually get the sound driver error message and
something opens...not usually what I clicked though, but always a control
panel item.

I even installed and ran the Vista upgrade advisor (from Vista) and it
didn't seem to mind; but it also told me everything was just fine, no
hardware or software problems at all. Maybe it's a corrupted file
somewhere, but I sure hate to reinstall Vista for one silly problem and have
to do all the updating etc again.

Thanks for the reply

Gary

 

[Lang Murphy]

Yes, it recognized it correctly and is the only one that shows. The
monitor may just be coincidental, as it's just when I noticed all this.

I can run the control panel applets from the Run command, for example if I
type in appwiz.cpl I get the add/remove programs, etc. and no error
message. I can also click on them in the system 32 folder, and none give
me any problem except mscui.cpl, which is the security one; with that, I
get the "your audio driver is not vista...etc." notification, just as if I
start the control panel itself from anywhere; but then it does open.

Nowhere else do I get that message about the sound driver, and the sound
works fine; reinstalling the driver has no effect. Nothing else seems to
be affected, that is I get what I click on in everything but the control
panel, either in the default view or the classic view. There, I may click
on something and get something else, or have nothing happen until I click
a blank spot, then I eventually get the sound driver error message and
something opens...not usually what I clicked though, but always a control
panel item.

I even installed and ran the Vista upgrade advisor (from Vista) and it
didn't seem to mind; but it also told me everything was just fine, no
hardware or software problems at all. Maybe it's a corrupted file
somewhere, but I sure hate to reinstall Vista for one silly problem and
have to do all the updating etc again.

Thanks for the reply

Gary

Do you have a system restore point to which you can revert? The monitor
thing sounds coincidental (although perhaps not, but...). Have you tried
going back to your previous monitor (first removing drivers for the new
monitor) to see whether it -is- the new monitor that's the root cause here?

Lang

 

[Gary R.]

Do you have a system restore point to which you can revert? The monitor
thing sounds coincidental (although perhaps not, but...). Have you tried
going back to your previous monitor (first removing drivers for the new
monitor) to see whether it -is- the new monitor that's the root cause
here?

I may have found a clue. The Nvidia drivers add a control panel applet. I
noticed that to open something from control panel classic view, I could
right click two icons to the right of the one I wanted. Nothing would
happen. Then if I right click anywhere, that applet (the one two to the
left of where I first left clicked) opens. Not all give me the sound error
message, but I haven't found a pattern there yet.

So I started at the first icon (add hardware) wondering what it would open
since there was nothing two icons to the left. It opened the correct one.
I continued on one icon at a time and although I had to left-click and then
right click (or right click and choose 'open'), they opened the right
applet. (my computer is set to single-click)

Then I got to the Nvidia control panel applet, and it also opened OK. But I
went to go to the next one, and the Nvidia one had disappeared... The icons
past that, when opened, all were one icon off. And when I clicked the
Parental controls icon, which sat where (alphabetically) the Nvidia icon
would have been, it opened....yep, the Nvidia panel...even though there was
no icon for it.

So that put the following icons off one spot; I don't know yet where they
get off two spots, but suppose I may find it given more looking. Since I've
heard that there have been problems with Nvidia drivers and Vista, maybe
this is the problem. I may try taking out the startup nvidia stuff from the
registry and leave the drivers installed just to see if it helps (since I
prefer not to use the nvidia control panel anyway). Otherwise I can
probably use the old default drivers, or an older version.

Now that I think of it, I had, prior to switching the monitor, updated the
drivers with the latest from Nvidia, as I also have a video card to replace
the onboard video. Perhaps it was the driver update and not the monitor
that started all of this. The video card is also in now but the behavior
persists. I may remove it all and try the system restore as you suggest,
but if it is the Nvidia driver then I'll have to figure out what to use
instead.

I don't know if any of this has to do with why the error for the AC97 sound
not being vista compatible comes up with control panel, but it sounds
likely, as I've had no issues with the sound. I appreciate the suggestions
and will post if I make any more progress.

Gary

 

[Guest]

I seem to have overburdened Vista (Home premium) by a major hardware
change...switching monitors 8^). Well, perhaps just coincidental, but
that's when it happened anyway.

I went to open control panel to uninstall google updater, and first got a
message that my audio driver was not Vista compatible. It's an AC97 and had
the Vista drivers from Realtek's site installed and has been working for
weeks without a hitch. I re-downloaded and reinstalled, but still got the
same message...when I open control panel, an error box comes up and tells me
the audio driver is not designed for Windows Vista (with an accompanying
beep from the working sound system...)

So I uninstalled the Realtek drivers and rebooted, and Vista told me it
needed to install drivers, which I let it do, and all was fine. But open
control panel, and 'bing' same old error message. Went to device manager
and the sound, told it to update drivers, it told me that I was already
using the best driver for my system and everything was just peachy.

Still, every time I go to control panel, 'bing', error message about audio
driver not designed for Vista; there is no "shut up and don't annoy me with
this worthless message again" box to check, and it seems there is no fix for
whatever Vista thinks is wrong. There is only an 'OK' box, when it's not
'OK', what I want to click is 'shut up you moron'.

But it gets worse. I tried to click the 'Programs and features' icon and
up pops the problem reports (after of course annoying me with the 'sound'
error box). I click 'sound' and get the security center. I click 'scanners
and cameras' and sometimes get windows update, of course always accompanied
by the nice sound error box. Other times I click an icon in CP and get
nothing, but then I click a blank area and get the sound error box, followed
by some seemingly-random CP task, maybe a previous one I clicked but didn't
get, or maybe a new surprise one, but seldom the one I want.

Biostar Nvidia Nforce 410 board with an onboard 6100 video, all drivers whql
from Nvidia's site, device manager shows all is well. Both the audio error
messages and the bizarre control panel behavior were noticed starting when I
switched monitors (plug and play, no software installed).

I just finally went ahead and activated this stupid thing a few days ago,
after it seemed all was OK; now it decides to mess up. I'm glad I put it on
an extra computer, not one I need to work reliably. Makes me appreciate XP.

Gary

Sounds like the control panel applet isn't working. Try finding the .CPL
file that goes with the realtek and delete it. You won't have a control panel
entry for it but it should still work fine.

 

[Lang Murphy]

I may have found a clue. The Nvidia drivers add a control panel applet.
I noticed that to open something from control panel classic view, I could
right click two icons to the right of the one I wanted. Nothing would
happen. Then if I right click anywhere, that applet (the one two to the
left of where I first left clicked) opens. Not all give me the sound
error message, but I haven't found a pattern there yet.

So I started at the first icon (add hardware) wondering what it would open
since there was nothing two icons to the left. It opened the correct one.
I continued on one icon at a time and although I had to left-click and
then right click (or right click and choose 'open'), they opened the right
applet. (my computer is set to single-click)

Then I got to the Nvidia control panel applet, and it also opened OK. But
I went to go to the next one, and the Nvidia one had disappeared... The
icons past that, when opened, all were one icon off. And when I clicked
the Parental controls icon, which sat where (alphabetically) the Nvidia
icon would have been, it opened....yep, the Nvidia panel...even though
there was no icon for it.

So that put the following icons off one spot; I don't know yet where they
get off two spots, but suppose I may find it given more looking. Since
I've heard that there have been problems with Nvidia drivers and Vista,
maybe this is the problem. I may try taking out the startup nvidia stuff
from the registry and leave the drivers installed just to see if it helps
(since I prefer not to use the nvidia control panel anyway). Otherwise I
can probably use the old default drivers, or an older version.

Now that I think of it, I had, prior to switching the monitor, updated the
drivers with the latest from Nvidia, as I also have a video card to
replace the onboard video. Perhaps it was the driver update and not the
monitor that started all of this. The video card is also in now but the
behavior persists. I may remove it all and try the system restore as you
suggest, but if it is the Nvidia driver then I'll have to figure out what
to use instead.

I don't know if any of this has to do with why the error for the AC97
sound not being vista compatible comes up with control panel, but it
sounds likely, as I've had no issues with the sound. I appreciate the
suggestions and will post if I make any more progress.

Gary

Gary,

Yeah, sounds like the Nvidea driver might be the culprit. Please do follow
up; it's good to post findings in this NG so that others may benefit from
your efforts without duplicating them "soup to nuts."

Lang