Hardware Wizard at every startup : HDAUDIO modem

[Guy Smiley]

Just tried NLite for the first time. If i can get this final niggle sorted I will definitely make a small donation, as its what I've been looking for for years.

Basically I wanted to strip down the computer for music composition - so no internet, networking or any of that.

I therefore disabled most of this stuff at install - in particular modem.

I ran Nlite and it all works fine, music software etc etc..

....except I got an error about Microsoft Bus not being present which prevented install of the onboard sound card (its a Sony Vaio laptop)

so googled it, and installed a utility produced by Conexant for their HDAUDIO card which installed the necessary hotfix, and recognised and configured stuff related to that sound card. Except the 'HDAUDIO Soft data fax modem with Smart CP" which it had a problem with 'There was a problem installing this hardware - click finish'.

Now I get that error message every time I boot up. I've looked in device manager, and the only missing driver (i.e. yellow question mark) is 'Network Controller'. If however i go to add hardware there in the list is a yellow question mark for the modem. click on this do update driver, and it immediately goes straight to the 'There was a problem installing this hardware - click finish' error message again (there is never any other option at this point only a finish button. I've downloaded the specific driver for the modem, but when I run this executable I get 'cannot complete installation' - and that same error message again!! - I'm pretty sick of the sight of it

I can disable plug and play and shell hardware detection services - but then audio doesn't work. so i can have no error message and no onboard sound or onboard sound and the error message.

I don't want to use the modem at all - ideally i would just disable it - but don't know how.

Its taken me a couple of days of staring at windows blue bars to get to this point so i really don't want to do a re-install - especially as I'm not sure how many more times I can do a windows activation request. In case you were wondering I'm typing this in seperate Linux partition (i heartily reccommend PCLinuxOS by the way)

Realise its a long request - but wanted to try and pre-empt some questions. Running Windows XP SP2.

If anyone replies I will be really grateful !!

[Guy Smiley]

I think what I'm asking is whether there is any way to reinstall parts of windows disabled by Nlite ?

Will add/remove programmes work ?

if so which part of the programme should I enable ?

Would really appreciate your help with this

[Guy Smiley]

Can anyone help ? getting a bit desperate to fix this - any suggestions gratefully rceived

[Guy Smiley]

OK well I've now spent about 12 hours trying to fix this bloody problem.

Basically i now understand that the driver is correctly finding the relevant conexant .INF flie (driver), which is failing because it can't find the relevant registry key for the ClasInstall32 aspect of the driver. I am now thinking that there must be a sequence to installing the drivers for the vaio which I've cocked up - probably because its a mix of .exe files and .inf files (so Nlite recognises an uses the INF files but not the exe's thereby altering the sequence and causing this error.

There were a couple of tweaks to the INF file recommended on a couple of sites, but unfortunately they didn't work.

I now realise that the only options open to me are :

1. Learn a lot about registry editing over a period of weeks, become an expert and re-write the .INF file myself (unlikely to happen)

2. Reinstall (and risk losing activation in the process)

3. Try and find a fairly simple registry tweak (or similar) which prevents XP from recognising that th modem is installed at all.

4. Try and find a way to get the modem recognised in device manager so that I can disable it completely.

..

So does anybody know how I can disable a specific item of hardware ? bearing in mind that it is not listed in device manager.

or does anyone have any idea how i can get the modem listed on device manager ?

Tks,