Creative drivers fails to install Win 7

[skykaptain]

Hello,

My SB X-Fi driver has stopped working on me for some reason. When I DL'ed the latest driver and tried to reinstall it I was given this error: "You have previously installed drivers without rebooting. Please reboot and try again." I then rebooted, uninstalled all creative software, drivers and deleted the Creative folder but nothing worked. I then tried CCleaner and  this:http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/how-to-fully-uninstall-creative-vista-drivers-solve-install-problems/ but nothing worked as well. When I go into device manager and uninstall it, Windows tries to install its own driver but it too fails to install.

What should I do next?

[socrates]

are you sure that the new driver is win7 compatible?  That'd be my first item to check.

Also, is the "windows own driver" is the same one it was using before when it worked?  If not, have you tried using the one that had worked before?

[skykaptain]

Yes, the new drive is Win 7 compatible as it was working before and windows' own driver was working too before. I have tried to install the windows one but that hasn't worked out.

I emailed Creative support but they told me, "Based upon your product's date of purchase, it appears you're beyond the
complementary telephone (60 days) and e-mail (1 year) support period. " So they will not help me from their end.

All of this started when the auto update softwarewas installed and started to update on its own.

[socrates]

Have you tried using the driver rollback feature built into windows 7?

[skykaptain]

that feature is grayed out so I cannot click it and when I try to update it says that no driver was found.

[socrates]

that feature is grayed out so I cannot click it and when I try to update it says that no driver was found.

hm.... that's odd.  My next step to check then would be a system restore.  See if you can go back to before you started messing with the driver.

[skykaptain]

See if you can go back to before you started messing with the driver.

I don't think that is possible as I do not save any of the system restores. I will try and physically remove the card and clean out the registry and stuff then put the card back in and see what happens. Now I'm using on board sound so it is not too critical to have the card working.

[socrates]

I don't think that is possible as I do not save any of the system restores. I will try and physically remove the card and clean out the registry and stuff then put the card back in and see what happens. Now I'm using on board sound so it is not too critical to have the card working.

Yeah, if you turned off system restore it won't help you.

I would try completely uninstalling the card from the system (clean up whatever you can of its software in the registry), then shut it down and remove it.  Let it boot up once clean without the sound card in, then shut it down, install the card again, and boot it back up.  Hopefully this will work.