Windows 7 upgrade embedded old Matrox driver requiring clean install

I have a Matrox M9120 PCIe x16 graphics card. It was running fine in Vista x64 with the 1.0.3.35 driver. I ran the Windows 7 x64 upgrade, and everything seemed to be OK until I discovered that I couldn't open Windows Media Center or view DVDs or other videos. I tried to upgrade to the latest Matrox driver, which supports Windows 7, but the old driver wouldn't uninstall.

I contacted Matrox tech support and was advised that I should have uninstalled the old Matrox driver BEFORE upgrading to Windows 7. They said that Windows 7 has locked in the old driver but cannot recognize it so that it can be uninstalled because it is not a Windows 7 compatible driver. They added that the ONLY solution is to do a clean install of Windows 7.

This is outrageous. No such information appears on the Matrox website, and Matrox did not notify me of the terrible consequences of upgrading to Windows 7 without uninstalling the Matrox driver even though I registered the product with them last January and provided my email address. Matrox knows that every customer faces a potential disaster when upgrading to Windows 7 but covers up the mess rather than notifying registered owners of the simple step to take prior to upgrading.

I'm not going to do a clean install but will use the Matrox card without the ability to play videos for the time being in the hope that some smart techie will figure out how to uninstall the old Matrox driver from Windows 7. If that doesn't happen, I'll buy some other fanless video card and replace the partially functional Matrox card.

Solution here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic [...] post351025