You’ve probably come here because your PC is giving you an error message shortly after startup about an error loading cmicnfg.cpl. This is a pretty common error in PC users running Windows XP; although less common than it used to be, there are still plenty of people out there running into this problem. This is an issue which is related to the C-Media WDM Audio Driver used for AC97 compatible soundcards. The problem generally arises after installing the Windows XP Service Pack 2, which has some compatibility issues with this particular driver.
This is a particularly irritating problem, with an error message coming up each time you start your system. Fortunately, there is a solution and you can stop worrying – this is not the work of a virus or spyware. As it happens, cmicnfg.cpl is the XP Control Panel applet for this driver – when it’s updated whether by the user or as part of XP SP2, the applet disappears, causing the system to complain about this missing component. Read on to see how to correct this problem.
There are two ways to fix this common error. One involves a series of many different steps which the user must do in order to prevent the error from returning – none of these are all that complicated in and of themselves, but there are quite a few. The other and easier way to solve this problem is to get your hands on a good quality registry cleaner which can take care of a lot of the work for you. You’ll want to do this afterwards even if you go with the entirely manual method to make sure that nothing has been left behind in your registry which can lead to a recurrence of these error messages.
First, open the Start menu, select Run and type regedit.exe. You’ll then need to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun, find the entry cmaudio and delete it. This is the entry responsible for the error message at startup.
Next, search for any entries related to C-Media or cmaudio and delete these registry keys as well. After this, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionControl PanelCpls and delete the Cmcpls entry to remove the WDM driver icon from your control panel if it is not gone already.
Still with me? The next step is to find and delete some files in your C:WINDOWSSystem32 directory. If you’re using a registry cleaner, you can start with this step and save yourself the trouble of searching through your registry.
The files you’re looking for are cmirmdrv.exe, cmirmdrv.dll, cmuda.dll and cmicnfg.cpl. Delete these and then delete the files C:WINDOWSSystem32Driverscmuda.dll and C:WINDOWSSystem32LastGoodcmicnfg.cpl. You’ll also want to search through your temporary folders (C:Temp, C:WindowsTemp, C:Documents and SettingsUserNameLocal SettingsTemp(if you’re running Windows 2000 or XP) and C:Windowsprefetch (if you’re using XP).
Once you’ve done this, you can go to your Device Manager (located in the System applet in your Control Panel in XP) and uninstall the WDM driver. Afterwards, click the “Scan for Hardware Changes” button in the toolbar of your Device Manager and your system should install a generic driver for the device. Problem solved (whew)!
While this cmicnfg.cpl error isn’t caused by a virus, there are plenty of hazards out there facing your computer. Your antivirus software is great, but it can’t do all the work. You need a quality registry cleaner to completely eliminate spyware and other malicious programs as well as to remove unnecessary registry entries and improve performance. If you take good care of your PC, it will continue to run as smoothly as the day you brought it home.