Pentax USB drivers were installed on my computer to connect with my Pentax Optio SV Digital Camera. The connection worked fine, however new files on the memory card were not being recognised. In an attempt to fix this problem I tried to reinstall the drivers, which required the Pentax USB driver CD. I inserted the CD and began the uninstallation, however the process stopped at 90% with the message: ‘InstallShield DLL. C:Program FilesPENTAXPENTAX USB DISK DeviceUninstall.DLL. Pressing the OK button produces a message that the uninstall procedure was unable to be completed. Re-running the setup on Modify, Delete or Repair modes does not work. Subsequently I have been unable to install new drivers which I downloaded from the Pentax website. Can you suggest a way to uninstall the old drivers? As a side note, the memory card has been checked separately and it downloads correctly to another computer. The computer is running Windows 98 SE.

The Uninstall.dll file is a file used by InstallShield (the installation program used for the Pentax USB drivers) to instruct InstallShield how to remove the software from your computer. Since the software is giving a message about this file, it appears there is either a problem with the file itself (e.g. corrupted) or the file is missing. Firstly, we should try uninstalling the driver through Windows Safe Mode, in case something which is running on the computer is causing the uninstallation to fail. Restart the computer and when the ‘Starting Windows 98′¦’ message appears (just before the Windows splash screen) press the F8 key. The Windows boot menu should appear. In the menu, select ‘Safe Mode’ and press ENTER. Windows will boot into Safe Mode. Don’t worry if Windows looks a bit strange, this is because no non-essential device drivers (including the USB digital camera drivers) are loaded. Once Windows has finished loading, try uninstalling the drivers again. If the uninstallation is successful, once it has finished, reboot the computer (and Windows will start back in Normal mode) and install the latest drivers for your camera.

In the event the previous procedure does not fix the problem, my next idea was to directly remove the device from within the Windows Device Manager. However, I don’t think this will help our situation, since this is likely to just remove the device from the system but leave the drivers still installed. Considering you cannot install the new drivers until the old drivers have been removed, this procedure would not help in solving the problem. Unfortunately I am unsure how else to proceed. I would welcome feedback from any other readers.