...by the system administrator here. I'm running NT 4 workstation. I know my sound card works because it works under linux but I can't play media files under NT because in control panel, the MULTIMEDIA PROPERTIES has been disabled. I can not select a playback or recording Preferred device. The whole page has been greyed out. there must be a way I can reenable this. registry? anyone have suggestions? Thanks in advance, Vala

Device drivers will generally have a .sys extension, like Smwdm.sys for the audio driver on my system. One way to disable a device is to rename its driver to, for example, Smwdm.syx If you can identify the sound board, you can track down the support page on the internet and determine the name of the NT driver. Then you can search to see if the driver is still there but renamed, eh? If you don't know the name or manufacturer of the soundboard, you can try installing one of the generic multimedia drivers that came with Windows NT. Some of them require that you have the setup CD available. I think some of them don't. Generic drivers allow you to get minimal functionality from your soundboard. That's better than nothing. If your Administrator disabled the soundboard, maybe it's because you are being paid to do some work, and your manager thinks the computer audio distracts you or your coworkers from getting the job done. Maybe, if you can't reenable the soundboard, you can do some work as a last resort.