Removing Unnecessary Sound Drivers in Windows 3.1

 Last reviewed: November 22, 1994
Article ID: Q85659
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows operating system versions 3.1, 3.11

SUMMARY

You can reduce the amount of disk space used by Windows by removing unnecessary sound drivers.

MORE INFORMATION

To remove unnecessary sound drivers:

  1. Open Control Panel.

  2. Select the Drivers icon.

  3. In the Installed Drivers box, select the driver(s) that are not being used. (Note: You cannot select multiple drivers for removal at the same time.)

  4. Choose the Remove button.

    A dialog box will appear with the following message: 

          This driver is required by the system. If you remove it,
      your system may not work properly. Are you sure you want
      to remove it?

    This message will appear even though the system may not have any sound device installed. It will not affect the operation of the system to remove these drivers if the system has no sound device installed. However, this process does not delete the corresponding file from the hard drive. You must use File Manager or MS-DOS to delete the file from the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory.

The following are the sound driver files included with Windows 3.1: 

Description                      Driver File
-----------                      -----------

Ad Lib                           MSADLIB.DRV
Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.0 SNDBLST.DRV Creative Labs Sound Blaster 1.5 SNDBLST2.DRV 
Media Vision Thunder Board       SNDBLST2.DRV
Midi Mapper                      MIDIMAP.DRV
Roland LAPCI                     MPU401.DRV
Roland MPU_401                   MPU401.DRV
Timer                            TIMER.DRV
[MCI] CD Audio                   MCICDA.DRV
[MCI] MIDI Sequencer             MCISEQ.DRV
[MCI] Sound                      MCIWAVE.DRV

KBCategory: kbmm kbsound
KBSubcategory: win31
Additional reference words: 3.10

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Last reviewed: November 22, 1994
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