Okay, so I use a USB capture device to record console games for my let's plays. Lately I've been having some very annoying issues with it. It refuses to recognize the device. Reinstalling the device doesn't work the majority of the time, and when it does work, it "forgets" the device after a reboot or two.

First off, I'm on Windows 7.

In my Programs and Features directory, there is a program called "USB Audio/Video Driver". I've pretty sure that it's referring to my capture device. Why the driver would be installed there, I have no idea. Any attempt to uninstall it results in this message:



It says that it was installed on August 29th, which was several days after those computer issues with the RAM stick going bad. Somewhere around that time, I had attempted a system restore or two, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I do know that I did try re-installing the driver from the installation disk, likely on the mentioned date.

As it so happens, though, there's two versions of the driver. There's the driver that comes on the installation disk, and there's the updated driver I found on the net that's for Windows 7. Installing the Windows 7 driver "seems" to work, but as said, half the time it still fails to recognize the device and forgets it when it does. Attempting to do anything with the driver on the installation disk results in it telling me the driver is already installed, but it won't let me do anything with the driver. Attempting to remove or repair the driver results in this message:



I'm certain the program that refuses to be unintalled is the same driver that's on the installation disk, since it mentions it by name. So likely what's going on is that the old driver is corrupted and interfering with the new driver. The fact that I can't seem to get rid of the old driver is quite an inconvenience.

Suggestions?

yikes. nothing worse then having random programs uninstall on you. is the driver a dll file? try to track it down and see if you can delete it. it might be in a hidden folder. you should known the name of the file as its the same as the one on the installation disk. see if removing it helps then you can put a new driver on it.

what game capture device do you use? im looking to get one myself as i cant get anything else to capture pictures.

safe mode

delete file

profit

also programs dont just uninstall themselves.

iunno, the maps application on my phone disappeared under fairly mysterious circumstances which i was unaware of until i wanted to use it....

((dray, ninjas in your computer did it!!!))

files can appear to of been spontaneously combusted, which is caused by viruses, read errors (corrupted start files ect), user secondary deletion (you do something that results in the program being lost without physically removing it yourself). safe mode to delete the files, i forgot about that. safe mode doesnt load dll files so you can remove them, otherwise its protected.

brotip: copy the file to another directory just in case you pic the wrong one. that way you dont run into problems. might want to even change the extension by adding a letter. i cant remember if it searched your computer for the file at start up or just the directory.

the fact you forgot about safe mode is testament to why you shouldnt be talking about computers.

your knowledge of them is ridiculously lacking.

The program didn't uninstall. It corrupted, and refuses to uninstall. Also, I use this:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=3875555
I know I seem to be having real troubles with it, but I'm pretty sure the fault is not of the device itself. It likely came as a result of all the lock-ups and reboots and system restores that I had to deal with when my RAM went bad. That, and the fact I tried re-installing the Vista driver on a Windows 7 system, at first.


Anyway, how the heck do you start Safe Mode? I'm told to hold F8 while the computer is booting up, before the Windows logo appears. That did diddly squat. Unless there's some sort of toggle I can find such as "start Windows in safe mode on next boot", the only thing I can think to do is hit the power button without doing a proper shutdown. That'll bring the option up.

Well, you can TAP it to get into your advance boot options. I usually just sit there and start tapping it after POST. And safe mode is an option in advance boot options.

You may want to try Stythe's option of deleting your profile though.

What I do when I try this is actually just rename your current profile something else... like tagging it as 'old' or 'bad' or something. Then when you log in, it'll create a new profile with your original log in name. After that, you can then just copy and paste all your desktop icons and what not from the old one and be right back where you were.

I'm not sure if that will do much, but of the things I've had you try, I can't think of anything better.


Alternately, if you are having problems getting into safe mode... you can often just rip the power cord out of the computer while it is still on and when you boot it back up, it'll send you to the same screen because it didn't properly shut down.

seriously, dont be a f*cking dick. im not overly knowledge about them but ive run into a few situations where ive had to locate files and remove them that refused to be uninstalled. every time ive had a problem with a program it ends up being a bad dll file. why doesnt he do an internet search, he will find just as much useful information there. at least im trying to help.


@dray: if you knows its a driver then check this guide out.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/a ... sician.htm

it has some interesting stuff that could be useful to you.

Okay, tapping F8 worked. But I still couldn't do anything with the program. Gave me the same error. A search on my hard drive revealed a file in the "Temp" folders, apparently created last year, but deleting it didn't do anything. To clarify, this thing appears ONLY in the "Programs and Features" directory, and nowhere else.

Also, I hate searching the net for answers. I get flooded with links lending advice to the wrong issues.

Well, regardless if you delete every instance you find on your computer of that program... there will always be entries in your registry. You can clear those out, but it's not something a lot of people should be doing. Some of the items in there are vital for the OS to function properly, so I don't often suggest this.

But if you hit start and type regedit in the bar right above the start button and hit enter, you'll open up a new window. This is the registry editor. If you hit F3, you will be able to use the find function. Type in a unique name of the program and thin just keep hitting find next. And delete the entries that are associated with that program.

Like creating a new profile, I'm not sure how effective this will be... again, I've had you go through all the motions I could think of prior.

I'm actually afraid to try recreating my profile. I'd probably skrew something up (like block out my own adminship), and likely the program-driver is global, anyway.

I'm thinking of switching over to 64-bit Windows at the moment. I'm told that even if I don't use all 6 Gigs of memory myself, Windows will still use it in the background for stuff, so it might add a performance gain. If I do switch over, I can just reformat the drive and start over.