I am not going to claim that I truly understand your weird driver day. I stumbled across this site trying to solve my own weird driver problem on my adored Vista laptop. I ask Google a LOT of questions. I don't know if search engines have improved that much or I forgot to think reformatting my hard drive.
Too many weird driver moments and I Googled my way here with my Controller that was on on long bus and the driver just quit. I see this yellow sign with a Code 39 (I think) driver that was corrupted or missing. Things aren't necessarily what they appear in Microsoftworld.
Within a few posts, problem the real issue solved. You wouldn't believe how many sites I went through to find the real culprit, the registry. This is where it gets totally weird. Deviant Art has a zillion OS Customization items. I liked the folders. I have no idea what or where the pretty bright aqua started out, but ended up my Archive file. Downloads started doing a disappearing act, but suddenly I would have two Download folders. I turned on Photoshop. It went down over a missing license.
I have no idea what or where the pretty bright aqua started out, but ended up my Archive file. Apparently the system knew and so did uTorrent. I changed the setting to Archive and uTorrent insisted that was not valid calling it Documents. When I started looking, I had too many empty files. One that I never look in, Searches. There were countless numbered encrypted files and some .dll's.
Why do I have to learn good things in a bad way? I decide to take up a new hobbys I may not be good at, but enjoy. My torrents AND Photoshop program AND projects are eaten! I couldn't resist this one! I came across that hacking is stealing and look at the price of the latest Photoshop CS5 release and had to make fun of it! Hopefully you will get a laugh out of it too!
Anyway, I wanted to stop by and thank your group for help no one knew made a difference to someone's sanity!