Cannot get ethernet driver to work!

[hyper_piper45]

My friend has an acer one and we have installed xp on it but we cant get the network driver to work. i think my friend did something wrong when he installed the drivers the first time. Now everytime we try and uninstall and reinstall the drivers the network connection number keeps increasing! Now we are on Local Area Connection 7. Also when i uninstall the drivers and scan for hardware changes it will reinstall the drivers again without asking me. Anyone know how to totally clear all the drivers without having to do a fresh install. Thanks

 

[Skidilliplop]

Tbh if you've just installed it I'd run a repair install of XP. It's going to be quicker in the long run as it'll only take 45 minutes max to re-install XP this way.

 

[Nanobot]

An uninstall should have done it, but as a last resort, have a search for the driver in C:\Windows\inf. Its a hidden system folder.
Any drivers that didnt come with Windows is usually listed in files called oemxx.inf along with a .pnf file with the same name.

If you know what the device is called, do a word or phrase search (not file name search) on the inf folder for the text shown by Device Manager. Then move the oemxx.inf and pnf files out somewhere. You can delete them but move may be safe in case.
PS. It may be a file prefixed with 'net' but the search will identify which files contain the name of the device.