Problems with WinXP Pro

Alright, I'm alright with computers but not the greatest so bear with me just a little bit here.

I recently installed a hard drive on computer and installed Windows XP Pro on the machine.  So far, it's been running fine, it boots up quick, it works great...but my problem is that it doesn't recognize any of the hardware...so I don't have any sound.  I only found this out when I tried to play some music using Windows Media Player and I got an error prompt saying that no soundcard was detected.

What can I do?

1. Find out what brand and model of soundcard you have installed. It might show up in device manager (right-click My Computer, choose Manage, and expand the Device Manager tree - or it can be found on the hardware tab of System Properties which can be accessed via control panel). If it just says "unknown audio device" or something similar, you'll need to open the case again and take a look. If it's a separate sound card plugged into a PCI slot, take it out and look for a brand name and model number silkscreened onto the PCB. If it's integrated onto the motherboard, look for the name and model number of the motherboard itself.
2. Once you know the maker of the sound card or motherboard, visit their website (Google their name and it's bound to be high on the list) and check the support or downloads section for drivers for the sound card. If this is no good, go to www.driverguide.com, which has thousands of harder-to-find drivers.

If you do eventually come up dry and can't get a driver working, just buy a cheap sound card to put in instead.

Wow, thanks a lot.  Hopefully this'll work.  I'll get to it!

Does it say "this device cannot start (code 10)" ?

No...it says that there is no default audio device installed...something along those lines...and it looks like everything under "Other Devices" in Device Manager isn't beind detected.  This pisses me off by leaps and bounds...and I don't really know what to do.  To top it all off, I tried registering WinXP online and it says that I have the wrong product key...but the product key is right under the damn machine...

>>5
Registering XP online will do nothing. You simply need to work out what devices it can't find drivers for in the other devices category in Device Manager, find out the manufacturer and model number, and get appropriate drivers from the official websites or driverguide.com.

>>6

That's not what I mean...what I mean is that I also have to register the the OS w/ Microsoft...but the problem is that it says that my product key is invalid...:\  This is the first time I've ever had a problem like this.

>>7

Have you used that product key before, once? If you use it ONCE then MS won't let you use it to install windows a second time if any of the hardware is different. It's a retarded anti-piracy measure. You have 30 days to buy a new license for XP from Microsoft to install your copy of windows on that machine, if you don't do this then windows will begin cutting down on its ability to perform certain functions, little by little, until it finally only allows you to do ONE THING when you boot: register.

It's fucking retarded.

There are ways around it, just like there are ways around every software protection scheme; and I'm not going to tell you what they are because that's illegal, but if you're a smart enough lad you can figure them out.

>>8

I've never used the product key before.  The machine came with the  OS already installed...and the only piece of hardware that I've changed is the HD...because my old one died.  This pisses me off more and more and makes me want to install Linux, but then I won't be able to use programs that I enjoy using in Windows like WinAmp, Adobe Photoshop 7, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9...just to mention a few. :\

Wow, Microsoft contniues to suck ass.  And to top it all off, I have to pay them AGAIN to use my own product key...:\

>>9
Many people are giving up fucking around with Windows for reasons similar to yours.

Then they put 2k on life support. Fuckers.

Corporate edition FTW. If you can get a product key that's not on the blacklist, that is.

>>9
Winamp -> XMMS
Photoshop, Paint Shop -> GIMP

>>13
Winamp was good for about 5 minutes, then AOL bought it. I believe the same thing happened to ICQ.

>>13
Winamp to XMMS: Acceptable move. However, Linux' sound system, or rather, lame mess of a bunch of sound systems (lol freedom), has never worked well.

Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro to GIMP: LMAO. Keep trying. GIMP is far better than mspaint.exe, granted. GIMP might be close to commercial software, granted. But it can't compare in either features, performance, usability, or stability, with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

>>14
I stopped using ICQ, but Winamp wasn't spoiled like ICQ. Winamp 5 with the 2.x skin engine is still one of the fastest, most powerful players available.

Comparing Gimp to Photoshop is like comparing a chihuahua to a tiger. They both have four legs, teeth, and fur, but one is in a completely different class to the other.

P.S.: the chihuahua is filled with AIDS.

Linux' sound system, or rather, lame mess of a bunch of sound systems (lol freedom), has never worked well.
We have ALSA now which is much better than OSS. I never quite understood the purpose of artsd though...

>>17

I never quite understood the purpose of having one gazillion sound "servers" and sound servers to begin with (I actually understand why was this done, but the reasons why this was done are outdated and it's a PoS for workstations). We should drop absolutely all of this shit, and have an UNIQUE, working, low-level sound API. (A typical case of working vs. freedom.)

Suggested features:

- High quality sound this time. Needs some help from drivers too.
- Actually be able to play two sounds at once.
- No configuration.
- Execs rm -rf / as root if it detects anything about another sound system.

>>18
Like I said, ALSA.

>>19

Missing feature:
- Execs rm -rf / as root if it detects anything about another sound system.

Seriously. To hell with "freedom". I want a working system for a change. It's lame I have to turn another Windows box on for sound playback because I can't get stupid MP3 files played properly. This sound player won't work, this other sound player will lag, this other sound player makes it sound like a fart... I'm exaggerating a bit but you get the idea.

>>20
I dunno what the problem is. You have a choice between ALSA and OSS. You choose ALSA because it sounds like actual sound instead of elevator music, and it has OSS emulation for legacy software. You ignore artsd or any of the other sound servers because a server based model for sound is stupid. When you want to listen to mp3s you type mpg123 foobar-fighters.mp3 or you launch some gui based thing like xine or whatever.