My Acer Laptop is just barely 4 months old. My old computer had Windows XP and this one is Vista. I had heard horror stories about software compatibility problems, so to prevent this, I bought all new software for the additional editing programs that I use in my photography business.

I first noticed that I had a problem on Aug 18th when I tried to download a new piece of software that was designed for Vista. Nothing happened! It never loaded! I checked my 'Device Manger' and got this message:

"WINDOWS CANNOT LOAD THE DEVICE DRIVERS FOR THIS HARDWARE. THE DRIVER MAY BE CORRUPT OR MISSING. (CODE 39).

I have been on-line with Acer support--they gave me three options:

1) uninstall the device in 'Device Manger', restart the computer and the device should be reinstalled.
I had tried to do this BEFORE I e-mailed them and it NEVER worked!

2) Editing my registry.
First of all, it is a very COMPLICATED thing to do and second of all they said if I did do it and I messed up my computer, it would NEGATE my warranty. They would not cover anything that happened to my computer because of this editing. But, they still insisted I give it a try! Are they CRAZY!!!!
The directions for this come from a fix from www.support.microsft.com for Windows XP and the second thing to do is to click 'RUN' in the 'Start Menu'. For the life of me I cannot locate 'Run' anywhere on my 'Vista Startup Menu'!

3) Conact the Acer Repair Depot.
Their repair people only deal in HARDWARE PROBLEMS. A driver is not hardware, it is the PROGRAM that makes the actual physical equipment function so therefore it is SOFTWARE!
If I were to take this suggestion, I would have to ship my laptop from Northern California to Temple, Texas and it would be gone for God only knows how long. I would have no way to download my photos for my clients while my laptop was in the 'shop'; since I'm just starting out and this is my only computer I might as well start the 'Bankruptcy' proceedings right now; not to mention the lawsuits I would incur because I wasn't able to honor the contracts I have with my clients.

Desperate for an answer, I went on the microsoft support site and went to the 'Vista Newsgroup.' I read many posts dealing with this problem. Various members of this community told the unfortunate person with a DVD/CD-ROM problem to try the first two suggestions Acer gave me. It worked for some; it caused more problems for others.No one ever asked "Where is 'RUN' located on the 'Vista Startup Menu?'. I think, looking at the 2006-2007 dates on their posts, these CD-ROM problems came from people who had upgraded from 'Windows XP' to 'Vista'. This computer CAME with Vista already installed.

I then found a post that stated that sometimes 'Windows Updates' can cause your DVD/CD-ROM to fail. It was suggested to delete the updates one at a time, uninstall the device and restart the computer without the update; going down the list until you find the update that caused the problem. This made more sense to me than editing the registry so I went for it. I have done this twice and besides the fact that before the CD-ROM didn't load at all and now it at least TRIES to load but fails; there's really no difference.

This problem is definitely software. I really don't want to edit my registry; I am unsure if I am capable of doing something so complex. But if I must I must...

Can anyone help me figure out how to do this on 'Vista'? For some reason 'Windows Live' will not let me log onto 'Newsgroup for Vista' site in order to ask this question or I would.

WHERE IS 'RUN' LOCATED ON THE 'VISTA STARTUP MENU'? OR WHAT DO YOU CLICK INSTEAD OF 'RUN'?

OR IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN TRY?