Windows Vista was recently installed on my computer, which ran perfectly until Office 2003 was loaded. Now, Windows Media Center no longer recognises the TV Tuner card and is unable to watch and record broadcast TV. Installing the latest drivers for the graphics card, TV tuner card, and Windows and Office has not resolved the problem. I have also recently noticed graphics “glitches” with the text and graphics in games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire. A second problem relates to sound on the computer. The computer has a Realtek AC97 audio chipset on-board the motherboard, with the latest drivers installed. I have been attempting to setup a microphone for speech recognition and to chat with friends while playing online games. However, upon opening the Sound control panel, when I click the “Recording” tab the window freezes with the message “Not Responding” in the title bar. Do you have any suggestions for resolving these problems?

The two problems you have described are very difficult to solve, mainly because it is not known whether the TV tuner card and audio hardware is completely compatible with Windows Vista. A potential cause of the problem is that when Office 2003 was loaded, or the updates for the various components (i.e. TV card, audio card, Windows, and Office) were installed, one of these packages broke the installation of the TV card and the audio card. Alternatively, for some reason Office 2003 conflicts with the TV card and audio card, resulting in these hardware items no longer working correctly. In any case, this problem is almost impossible to diagnose and resolve without seeing the actual computer.

My suggestion is to reinstall Windows Vista. While you didn’t mention this specifically, since you said that Windows Vista was recently installed on the computer I assume this means that the computer was upgraded to Windows Vista from an earlier version of Windows (such as Windows XP). It is always better to do a clean installation of Windows Vista from scratch, as this will generally avoid many hardware faults and other conflicts which you may experience with an upgrade. Once Windows has finished reinstalling, try installing Office 2003 before installing the device drivers for the TV tuner card and audio card, in case the order of installation influences the ability to correctly install the drivers for the devices. It may also be worthwhile checking the website for the TV tuner card and audio card to double-check whether the devices are compatible with Windows Vista, and whether any special configuration options need to be set to allow Vista compatibility.