No audio device is installed (typical solutions don't work)

hey all,

i've just about had it with this issue. i had audio working great, until i tried to install new creative drivers for my audigy SE (basically a live 24-bit..). anyway, after i installed those drivers, i realized i needed to delete a certain entry in a registry (forget which one ). so next bootup, my problem began. vista claims that "no audio device is installed" in sound manager, although Device manager reports all as well . I decided to rule out a driver error, attempting to use my onboard audio (realtek azala audio ALC 889A). i made sure to go into safe mode, use driver cleaner pro, and delete all of my creative files. a strange thing i noticed is that the entry "sound blaster audigy" is still present in the "uninstall programs" app. anyway, the new device drivers installed successfully, and i'm sure of it after countless attempts. i'm not sure, but i think the problem is emerging from a missing codec/ some sort of missing media file from vista (i might have deleted an important file, too bad i can't recall which one i deleted )

any help would be great

well, problem solved with a reformat

M$haft should really have a fix for that, its a really common problem (from an upgrade to sp1 or from xp..)

while i agree to this, with the whole daniel_k incident, it's a problem with many different brands of sound cards. it must be something in vista's WDDM, but i really don't know. all i know is that it caused me to waste 10 hours of my life doing nothing

by the way, i'm sticking to onboard sound now, because of creative's lack of 5.1 support on audigy SEs/live24 bits.