Very Basic Modem Question. Can't find answer on Google.

[slackmax]

Hi,

I'm asking you guys since I don't want to get swamped with technogeek overkill from a geek website. (Although I'm sure there must be some estimable geeks here also! Massive respect for geeks!)  I've looked all over Google and can't find the answer.

All I want to know is whether I can uninstall a modem from my system without deleting it's drivers.

I'm having problems installing an internal 56K PCI internal modem on a Windows 7 system.

Getting an error message and there is a ton of discussion about the error message on Google, but I haven't found an answer to this particular question.

A lot of the Google discussion is about NOT adding unneeded stuff and also about NOT deleting the good stuff (like drivers that work). 

To cut to the chase :   I'm at the point where I want to undo everything and start over. "Uninstalling the modem"  (logically, not physically)  via Device Manager is supposedly the way to do this.

I don't recall the system telling me it added any drivers when I installed the modem. I certainly did not add any myself. So why uninstall any?

But "Uninstall" is what Google says to do, not "remove", and the only thing Device Manager wants to is "uninstall the driver for the selected device". 

In "phones and modems" in Device Manager there is an option to "remove" the modem, and it makes no mention of driver files. I'm afraid this will remove (delete) the drivers as well as the modem entry.

Not to drag it out even more but..... could it be that "uninstall the drivers"  simply means to "keep the driver files intact somewhere but just unlink them from the device in question". So uninstalling them does not actually delete them ? 

I feel like I'm asking how to install an air filter on a car. Such a basic thing, but just can't find an answer  !

Thanks

   
 

[bobechs]

And you are fixated on whether you are deleting the actual bytes representing the driver in the operating system files, rather than disabling the device through OS settings..... why?

[slackmax]

Hi bobechs,

Thanks for the reply.

I want to make sure I do NOT delete any driver files that I may need. I also do not want to disable anything.

I want to restore the system to it's state just before I inserted the new modem and used Wiard to install it. Wizard gave me a message saying "the modem has been set up succesfully", but did not say it installed any drivers for it. Maybe it already had the appropriate driver. I don't want to lose any good driver files when I uninstall the modem.

I guess it boils down to what is happening during an "uninstall".  Are files deleted?  Or are the driver files just disassociated from /  unlinked from  the modem ?

I didn't use any disk to install any new drivers, so I want to be sure I don't delete any existing driver files if I click on "uninstall" in Device Manager.   

And I'm wondering if "installing drivers" from an already existing batch of drivers means just "allocating"  them to the device (modem), not actually bringing in new driver files to the hard drive.

Again, I just want to back out any changes that happened during my attempt to install the modem, so I can start over fresh.

[sokoloff]

Check to see if the installation created a system restore point.

If so, and the modem was the last thing you installed, consider rolling back to that SRP.

If not, you can create one yourself and try to fix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore

[bobechs]

It's like sokoloff sez.

If you didn't insert any physical medium or download any new files all your system has to work with is what it has to work with, which is what was there yo begin with.  Where it is located and what registry entries it relies upon are details that are not only not obvious, they are things that should be of no great concern to you.

Once again I ask; why do you care?  Idle curiosity, or is there some instrumental use you would have for such esoteric knowledge?

[slackmax]

It's like sokoloff sez.

If you didn't insert any physical medium or download any new files all your system has to work with is what it has to work with, which is what was there yo begin with.  Where it is located and what registry entries it relies upon are details that are not only not obvious, they are things that should be of no great concern to you.

Once again I ask; why do you care?  Idle curiosity, or is there some instrumental use you would have for such esoteric knowledge?

Sokoloff, I am reluctant to mess around with Restore due to some things I have read about it and drivers. Plus I read that any reboot wipes out the Restore points in Win 7. Ugh...



Bobech,
Yes, I agree that the system has not added any new driver(s), and that at this point it has the same drivers as before I installed the modem.   

Next step --->  Uninstall **modem** (not driver)   so I can start over without changing any drivers.

How to uninstall modem ?  Answer : the only "uninstall" option related to a modem, in Device Driver that I can find says it will Uninstall the  ***  DRIVER   ****    for the modem.  What driver? Obviously it is referring to the existing driver(s) that was already there (which I do NOT want to delete).   

And my question remains unanswered which is "Does an Uninstall delete any drivers?"   

I'm not trying to be difficult. I have a limited knowledge of PC's, yes, it's true, unfortunately, so I must do things one small step at a time, better safe than sorry. Ha Ha. 

  I just obtained this nice Windows 7 machine with nothing loaded on it yet except the basics, and I really, really don't want to hose it up.  Sounds like accidentally deleting a driver that the modem needs would definitely fall in that category. Ha  Ha.

If Uninstall truly merely rearranges pointers to files and does not actually delete anything, I would very happily use the Uninstall option, but I don't know that it does that.

OK......Another aspect to this thing is that I think the person I bought the pc from already had the ethernet jack port assigned to Com1 (I am also using Com1 for my modem since dev mgr will only let me use com1 or "all ports". I did not Uninstall anything assigned to Com1 before I installed my modem, and now I am thinking if I uninstall any driver associated with com1, I will delete a driver for the ethernet port. Yikes.     

In "phones and modems" in Device Manager there is an option to "remove" the modem, and it makes no mention of driver files. Since it doesn't mention driver files maybe I should use this option to blow away the modem and start over.

When I first explored this computer there was no entry for Modems. Just an entry for com1 in the "Com and LPT1"  that had a modem defined, which I think the previous owner was using for ethernet port high speed modem, maybe dsl. The fact that I caused the new Modems entry to appear emboldens me to think that whatever I uninstall under Modems will only uninstall stuff I did. On the other hand, I didn't add any drivers, so why is the uninstall option under Modems allowing me to uninstall drivers? It's confusing. But it makes think uninstall really means unlink, not delete.   


Thanks, guys, for your input !!
Sorry to be so dense !  Ha Ha.  I welcome any help !!!!     

   

[sokoloff]

I would proceed with the device manager uninstall.

If you stick to the vanilla options in device manager and don't try intentionally dangerous things, device manager is pretty safe. There's very little that you're not going to be able to repair with enough googling and help anyway.

[slackmax]

Thanks guys for your help.  I finally found something helpful on the net (msdn.microsoft.com) about this. The following is for Windows 10, so maybe it is the same for Windows 7. It sounds like it just resets pointers, and leaves the driver files there, for possible future reuse.

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When a device is uninstalled by using one of these methods, the Plug and Play (PnP) manager removes a subset of the system states that were created during device installation. For example, it removes the association between the driver binary files and the device. This association is used by the Service Control Manager (SCM) to load the appropriate driver for the device.

This uninstall action does not undo all the actions that were performed during the installation process. For example, the driver package and the driver's binary files remain where they were copied to the local hard disk. Some registry keys that were created by a class installer or co-installer (together with some other registry operations) are not changed.
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