You Receive a Prompt for the Aliadwdm.sys File When Upgrading Windows XP

When you upgrade from Windows XP Home to Windows XP Professional, or when you upgrade Windows XP to the latest Service Pack, you may receive a prompt for the location of the Aliadwdm.sys file. If you do not act on this prompt, after the upgrade, sound does not work in Windows XP and a yellow exclamation mark appears next to the audio device in Device Manager.

During the upgrade, the Windows XP setup process deletes the audio device driver Aliadwdm.sys because earlier versions of the file are known to cause problems.

In most cases, the file is replaced with Ac97ali.sys, which is a later version of the audio device driver.

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods:

• Download and install the latest version of the audio driver from the manufacturer's Web site.
• Locate the preload CD-ROM that is included with your computer, and then reinstall only the audio driver.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Earlier versions of Aliadwdm.sys contain known issues with Windows XP.

Therefore, when upgrading to Windows XP or one of its service packs, look for Aliadwdm.sys in the Txtsetup.sif file. If present, delete it, and then install the built-in driver Ac97ali.sys.

However, if Windows determines that Aliadwdm.sys is a better match than Ac97ali.sys, try to keep Aliadwdm.sys because it is the best driver to use. For example, this might occur if it was a later version than the built-in driver. Because the driver was removed during the beginning of the upgrade, you receive a prompt for the location of the third-party driver Aliadwdm.sys. If you ignore the prompt for the driver, the upgrade completes, and a yellow exclamation mark appears next to the audio device driver in Device Manager.

After the upgrade, you can either update the driver using the ALI driver, or you can remove the driver in Device Manager and scan for new hardware changes so that the built-in driver is installed instead.