Installing a pre release copy of a operating system service pack is mad if it's your only machine and/or you cannot afford to lose the disk content...

If you're technically inclined you could track the state of the machine configuration before and after uninstallation to see what DLL / setting has been removed.

which vdmsound, 2.1.0 or 2.0.4? probably 2.0.4 in which case you may have installed something else in between vdmsound's installation and your attempt to uninstall it and you confused the heck out of Windows Installer
I forget which DLL's exactly are updated by VDMSound ATL.DLL and *VC6*.dll IIRC, bacup those, uninstall VDMSound, then restore them and see what happens.
v.

It's vdmsound 2.1.0 and the same error appeared month ago, with sp1 installed shortly before I reinstalled windows completely. I'll try that with the dll's. thx so far.

may not work. snover confirm, but I think 2.1.0 does not remove the dlls when uninstalled so very likely those dlls are not the problem.

Athlon 1GHz
256Mb
XP Pro SP1
ICS
Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200 AGP
SB Live! Platinum

I have just installed VDMSound 2.1.0 (and options) in an attempt to run the old platform games Aladdin & Lion King (nostalgia ah!)
I use ICS to allow connection of 2 client machines to my ADSL Internet connection. VDMS was loaded onto the ICS host machine.
The day after installing I decided to remove VDMS using the control panel uninstall.
After rebooting the machine neither of the client machines could access the internet whether the host was already connected or by trying to connect direct from the clients. Shared folder access was still available through the network. Note that no other system changes were made between installing VDMS and removing it.
In an effort to remove VDMS I tried to restore the system from a (several) previous checkpoint(s). System Restore kept telling me it was unable to restore. In the end I told the system to restore from the checkpoint created the morning after installing VDMS which it did successfully. This also successfully restored a working ICS.
In conclusion VDMS 2.1.0 has
a) prevented me restoring to a pre-install checkpoint
b) changed something used by ICS causing ICS to fail after uninstalling VDMS.
This is not a complaint post as I am aware that the s/w is beta and free anyway but I thought I should make you aware that there does appear to be an issue here and if anybody has discovered a solution I should be glad to hear it.
Thanks

Your "In conclusion" statement...

How can u say so categorically that VDMSound botched up your ICS *if* you restored a system restore point which *included* VDMSound *and* ICS was now working? Surely that doesn't make too much sense?

I might try and look at this using my sysprep WinXP image under Virtual PC...

I can see what you're driving at but what I said was that uninstalling VDMS caused the problem with ICS not running VDMS.
Restoring the system with VDMS back on got ICS working again.

Pre-VDMS = ICS working
Installed VDMS = ICS working
Uninstalled VDMS = ICS not working
Restored system with VDMS = ICS working

What more can I say. I've never had any problems with ICS before (or with restores for that matter).

Can you enlighten me on this sysprep WinXP image business.

Thanks

OK, I got the wrong end of the stick 😀 It would sound like there's a DLL being unregistered?! Mind you, why would you want to uninstall VDMSound 😀 It's great at what it does!

Way off topic but may be of use....

I use Virtual PC for testing apps I develop. In order to save as much time as possible I have a sysprep image of Windows XP that I can use to start a new machine with. A sysprep image is just a snapshot of a machine that's already installed but rolled back a few steps so when you 1st boot it, it will ask for a few key details (machine name being the important one!).

Install Windows XP
Install patches, tools, utilities, applications as you want etc.
Sysprep the disk
Make an image of the disk

When you want a new machine based on that image, you simply overwrite the current disk with the image then boot the machine. A mini setup runs asking a few questions and within 5 minutes you've got a machine with a well known configuration.

With Virtual PC, it's a little easier as the 'make an image of the disk' is merely 'take a copy of the virtual hard disk file'.

Thanks for that Reckless. The disk image business sounds a bit techy for me, I'm a user not a systems engineer. Sounds useful though.
To get back on topic, I concur that something appears to be unregistered/uninstalled when removing VDMS, I was querying whether anyone knew what. Not knowing the ins and outs of Windows I'm also pondering on what could cause system restores to stop working.
I'm not knocking VDMS, I'm sure it does the business for loads of people 😀 but if problems are encountered they need to be reported so others are aware and they can be addressed. Isn't that the point of a beta version?
In the meantime I have to leave VDMS on the system so that ICS continues to work.
Further, is it at all possible to run C&C (not Gold) with VDMS or does it require Dosbox? At present I can't seem to get it to install never mind run.
Thanks

Not sure why the MSI (of V2.0.4) was dropped - probably an experience related decision. If it was still MSI based I could have understood it more as I've been developing MSI's for a few years now. My experience of NSIS on the other hand is of the last 20 minutes only 😀

These are the files that are 'manhandled' within the installer:
C:\WINNT\system32\atl.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\msvcrt.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\msvcp60.dll
C:\WINNT\system32\mfc42.dll

This will (obviously) affect the versions in the main Windows directory.

As for the uninstallation... from what I can see, there are no actions that affect system files or settings and so I cannot see what the problem could be.

Could you give me any more specific errors from ICS?

MSI, NSIS? I can feel a transportation to the land of the mystical coming on!
Not sure where I should be looking for ICS errors, all I know is that both client machines would not access the internet (if connected via the host machine, although the host machine seemed happy enough), and neither client machine would dial up when a connection didn't exist. No error messages were displayed. Interestingly, when the host was connected to the internet the systray internet connection icon on both clients disappeared suggesting that they couldn't see the internet connection at all, never mind utilise it.
I'll be happy to provide more ICS info if you let me know where I should be looking.
Thanks

Oh happy days are here again...

Managed to install C&C using Dosbox and it's running like a dream, fullscreen with VDMS.

Happy happy happy 😁