My problem is that I am unable to play any sound on my computer. Most options in My Computer> Multimedia are greyed out. The driver status is saying : enabled but inactive due to an unknown problem. On searching a tech forum, I found that this error is (probably) because of corrupt system.ini file in my WinMe OS. The remedy that was given (in that thread) is that I should replace my corrupt system.ini file with a right one. Now I am confused. Does it mean that (1) I have to search for a PC (with WinMe installed ) which is playing the sound. Then (2) Go to its C>Windows folder, copy its system.ini file on a floopy disk. Return to my PC and (3) copy the system.ini file from the floppy into the C>Windows folder so that it overwrites my existing (and corrupt )system.ini file ? Is the above a correct process ? I am just an average level PC user with negligible knowledge of system files. I think this system.ini file is a very essential system file. Is it OK to change this file by just overwriting it with a correct one from another PC. Or is there any other way. Please help me friends. Shekhar Kashyap

hello have you just tryed going to device manager and remove sound card there and reboot? or d/l new sould card drive for m.e and install it? ••• Resistance is invigorating! •••

Thanks for your reply ! Well I have done all these things. Installing, removing and again installing the drivers. Nothing seems to work. Well in order to clearly explain what I want to ask, let me republish the solution of this problem that I find in a thread . It goes like this: " I had the same problem, and if you change your sound card, change drivers, wherever, the problem will remain. I have a solution. The problem is : the system.ini file on your computer is corrupted or some command lines are missing, this can occurs when you install a program and for a understandable reason the config.sys files is not written correctly. First I will say what not work A) If you delete the system.ini and install windows again, you system.ini will appear, but with the old problem, so don’t do that. B) If you reformat your HD and install windows again, the problem is solved, but I think this is too traumatic. What can work ? A) If you have an system.ini old copy, you can copy to C:\WINDOWS directory an replace the actual system.ini , maybe this is not easy to do, because is not normal make an system.ini copy. B) If you have a friend or if you know someone who have a computer with an configuration like yours you can take a copy of system.ini and copy to C:\WINDOWS directory on your computer. C) You can copy any system.ini file even if the computer is different from yours. You can try use my system.ini file, but I think this is too different from yours because my configuration is Brazilian, but you can copy and past and after that you can change your configuration change things like keyboard setting. If you solve your problem please let me know. Thanks" So I want a clarification on the above solution. Is it OK to replace system.ini file in the way it is desribed in the above solution. Will there be any side effect of this replacement of system.ini ? Please help Shekhar Kashyap

Shekhar Kashyap, Subject: How to repair/replace system.ini Now that's your subject. So, I'll start with that. You will have a minimum, of five(5) backup copies. They are also backed up, each time the registry is. If you want to see, what I'm talking about. Go to Start...Run, and type; sysbckup (Press Enter) A window will open, and in it, will be the registry backups. rbxxx.cab, the x, will be replaced by numbers. Now, if you just want a system.ini, to compare to the one that's being used. Right-click, one of the rbxxx.cabs, and then click Explore. In the right-hand side, one of the files will be system.ini You can simply hold your left mouse button down on it, and move the pointer to where you want it copied. Like for instance, your desktop. After that, close the .cab window. Like I had said, system.ini is one of the files that is backed up, with the registry. So, if you restore the registry, it is also restored. Back to the time, it was made. To answer your question. Can you take a system.ini, from a friends computer. NO Open your system.ini file, in notepad. Copy it's contents, and paste them in a response here. Someone, might have a look at it, and see if there's a problem. When, did your sound problem begin? CrazyOne

Well thankyou very much you both friends for coming up with your proposed solutions. But I must say that my problem has been solved !!!! and it is because of a serendipitious (by chance I mean :) discovery. Do you know what I did. In morning I was searching the google for some articles on registry. Then I came across a suggestion to use a tool which is inbuilt in the Windows OS itself. I run that tool and lo and behold !! The sound (& all icons in multimedia ) appears like magic. Do you know what I did. It's simple like this: I go to Start>programs>Accesories>System Tools> system information. Here I selected Tools >Registry Checker Almost instantly the windows started checking all the faults in my registry. It displayed that an error has occured and windows will restore the setting. Then it prompt me to restart my PC. When I boot it again- Miracle !! All my lost sounds had appeared. Well Thank you Microsoft for these wonderful inbuilt tools. Thank you Google for always coming up with such great articles on almost evrything and above all thankyou Computing.net for providing me a forum where people are so wiling to help each other. Ok its time to listen some music.Bye friends. I'll come again in my hours of need :) Shekhar Kashyap

Quicker way to get to the registry checker is to just Start - RUN - SCANREGW