Problem when uninstalling AC97 audio drivers

[adamzapple]

I have two PC's at my house, one is for the kids. Both run Vista. The older PC has an ASUS board with SoundMax intergrated Audio. It has an AC97 realtek ADI 1888 codec but there are no Soundmax drivers available for that codec under vista, so I have been using generic AC97 Vista drivers obtained from the realtek site. They work OK but it doesn't have digital output, which we can all live with because it is still a pretty good sound.

The problem is that if I uninstall the AC97 drivers; which I have done a couple of times, I also lose access to the control panel and a few other vista services. At first I did not realize that it was the driver uninstall that was doing it because you only notice the problem the next day when you restart the PC. I thought that it was a virus or something else.

Any idea what else the driver uninstall may be deleting to make this happen?

I have tried Google and a quite a few vista users have lost access to the control panel but they do not seem to know why; or how to get it back without reinstalling vista, which has been my only way of fixing the problem also.

They all say that is a glitch with vista but I am positive it has been caused by something similar to my own experiences.

And yes I have stopped uninstalling the drivers now, and do not bother to update them anymore.

Any help would be appreciated