WinXP Control Panel misses sound card which Linux and Device Mgr find OK

My WInXP lost its sound about a year ago mysteriously. Now I can’t play any CDs or even a system sound file such as tada.wav without seeing the Windows Media Player “no sound-card” error message. Control Panel also clearly indicates that there is no sound card.

But the interesting thing is that when I run Linux on the same machine, I can play audiobooks, music CDs, and videos. Updating the WinXP sound drivers has not helped and the WinXP Device Manager shows nothing wrong. Re-installing WinXP hasn’t helped either.

I tend to think that this is a WinXP software problem.

Julianvb