HP all in one fails sound driver & webcam driver installation on Windows 8.1

Nothing taunts a systems administrator like a yellow exclamation triangle in device manager. After an HP all in one computer had been worked on to remedy another issue, the only problem that remained was no sound & no webcam. And that stupid little yellow symbol. This appeared after Windows Updates had automatically updated the operating system…

Fixing Code 19 error in device manager for CD/DVD drive – configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged

Windows XP laptop with a DVD writer not working – can’t see or play CDs or DVDs, not even appearing as a drive letter. Device manager shows the drive with an exclamation mark and the error: “Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. To fix…

Disappearing sound devices

Today’s lesson is a short one, about the magic of disappearing sound devices. In Vista, under Control Panel, then Sounds, the first tab is Playback.  Mine shows two devices: Speakers and Realtek Digital Output.  Whilst playing around with some settings the other day, I right-clicked on Speakers and selected Disable … and disable they did!  Having been…