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I'm running Windows 7 x64 on a Dell XPS m1730 laptop. I recently re-installed Windows 7 (complete wipe) and since that time, have been unable to get my Creative Labs Integrated Webcam working (or even recognized).

I have the OEM drivers (which may or may not be 64 bit), and installing them has no apparent effect (the webcam software is installed but when run, says that there is no webcam found and to please connect it).

In Device Manager, the webcam device is not listed at all. I have been able to identify all the other unidentified devices (they are all related to the SD card reader that I'm not using so haven't bothered to install); the webcam is not there.

Additionally, I have also tried the "Have Disk..." method, to no avail. I can see the .ini files, but when loaded using Have Disk... no devices are listed.

The fact that I do not get an error when selecting the .ini file is quite interesting - any other bogus ini file gives me an error message (or if I select the correct .ini file but under the wrong hardware category, I get the same error). Here I get no error when loading the .ini file in the Add Hardware wizard - just an empty list of Manufacturers and Models. So I can't proceed.

The physical device should still be plugged in. There is no reason that it would be disconnected through a simple hard drive swap and OS reinstall, so I doubt that is it.

I'm at a loss. What should I try next (short of a complete wipe)?

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There may be other drivers that have to be installed before the webcam will be detected/show up in dev manager, perhaps chipset drivers or the like. Unfortunately, one cannot depend on every device showing up in device manager for installing drivers. Your best bet is to visit Dell's support site and download all the drivers for your particular model and OS and install them in Dell's recommended order: typically system and/or chipset first, then peripherals second, etc.

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  • I think you're right about the order in which things are done. One of the things that I ended up doing was uninstalling all of the Root USB Hub devices from Device Manager (there were 8 of them!). A few reboots later and the webcam was back on track. Thanks for the feedback.
    – Tom Auger
    Mar 13, 2013 at 18:45

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