You may ask, if the entries are mostly back but you have the "Multimedia Audio Driver" now, what the point was of removing the registry entries in the first place if you were just going to have to delete the entries again when all you had to do was to delete 3 files to prevent the installation from completing. The reason was to buy you time to delete those 3 files before the installation completes, because it takes no time at all for those files to copy.

- As long as you have the generic "Multimedia Audio Driver", run the setup.exe for Realtek AC'97 and it should install correctly.

- You'll need to do these steps for each user on the computer.

Deleting the temp files I mentioned didn't seem to have much effect on this issue, but I put it in just in case before. It can be done or skipped, and can try it with or without.

Sorry, I haven't been able to figure out how to get a driver Windows has in its driver list OUT of that driver list once it has been added. As with any manufacturer, if you install their drivers, Windows remembers them and keeps them in its list from then on and will access that list when trying to install/re-install devices. I don't know how to remove them from it, so this is the best I can do. Maybe someone else knows where that driver record is kept, but it's not in the registry from what I can tell.

It maybe that it simply reads the driver .ini files in the C:\WINDOWS\Inf folder or somewhere to create the list, and just a matter of finding the one and deleting it and its associated PNF file, but it's not among the obvious WDM .ini files, nor does it start with "cm" if it is in the Inf folder, and I don't really have the time right now to look at each .ini to find out where it's pulling its data. Maybe do an "all-files" search of your hard drive for "*.ini" (no quotes) and open them to see what device they're for. That's as much as I can say on that, so that's the reason for my procedure of trying to head of the installation before it completes. When I have more time I may do this myself and post up my findings again. But hopefully it should work if you do everything in order and your timing is right.