[SOLVED] I think I need some technical advice please, before purchase.

I do not believe your issue is with W7 at all but is really with the sound driver manufacturer.

In XP I had the option to record from websites etc but when I went to W7 the sound driver for this hardware no longer included that. (I suspect it may be related to pressure from the music industry to help prevent copying audio straight from the web etc, but maybe that's just my big-brother paranoia.) No matter the reason it wasn't W7, they don't write the drivers.

There is very little incentive for hardware manufacturers to develop drivers for old hardware; personally I think they are missing an opportunity to sell older drivers, but as it stands they give away drivers or they stop supporting because they are more interested in selling new hardware than in spending developers time writing older drivers.

It doesn't solve your issue I'm afraid, your best option is likely new hardware, but I felt it was important to put the blame where it belongs, on the hardware manufacturers not on Microsoft.

I hope this doesn't post twice - I just was typing a reply to Val Zee and I went to type a 1/2 symbol and when I pressed the alt key + number 1 of 172 for the ascii code the browser shut down and I lost my posting. Weird!

I can't really add anything to the help you have on this one Val Zee as I know nothing of the Windows Sound Management changes. My W7 home prem has a Realtek High Definition Audio soundcard - works like a charm. I record off air captures using my Audacity program (free version to suit Windows 7) and it hasn't let me down yet.
I have a cheap Microphone for very rarely doing recordings of speech. I use external devices such as a Yamaha Digital recorder, to make "live" recordings of my piano in a studio room in my home which I have acoustically tweaked to suit the piano sound and then I work on files of types wav flac and mp3 audio on the Windows 7 again using Audacity as I don't need anything more sophisticated than that for editing.

I use VLC Media Player to view video and Windows Live Movie Maker and an old copy of the original Windows Movie Maker, to edit and fiddle with videos and so I've not got any issues with audio in relation to that either. But I can understand your frustration if you have a sound system hardware or software problem on your W7
I'm sure the great guys here will find you a way through the problem.

It's of no help to you, to know that my setup is still working superbly some 3 and a half months on from my original postings here. Paintshop Pro 7 still jogs along well and I've not yet needed to use Virtual PC or XP mode as my old XP pc is still under my desk being used very rarely as a reference to very old files that are saved there.
I do use it now and then for making panoramic stitches on Ulead 360 which won't run on WIndows 7 even in compatibility mode. So I guess I'm well fixed now until this HP machine packs up. If it does die on me, I've still got my trusty Apple Macbook which I use when roaming around.

I hope you solve that soundcard issue as in your job you can't afford to have Recording issues.
--
Plado

Between your post above and a post I had found on another forum..I began to "put two and two together" and something clicked in. I had Microsoft enabled to update my drivers and assumed that it was being updated with the correct manufacturers driver, and when I had checked my drivers I was getting the message that it was the correct driver and everything was working fine...but it wasn't. I checked the Realtek driver and found that it was not the one from the Realtek Manufacturer but from "Andrea" and approved by Microsoft. The driver was apparently being replaced by a driver from other than Realtek and it was not the correct driver for my machine. The other poster suggested disabling the Microsoft update and going directly to the manufacturers website and downloading and installing the latest driver from that website. When I did this suddenly everything is working again the way it was supposed to work and I am back in business.
My deepest thanks to you for the information about drivers and the other poster for giving me the clues about drivers being used in the automatic updates, that they are not always the genuine manufacturers drivers. It does make a difference in the proper functioning of your hardware.

Yes, that happens sometimes if the wrong hardware ID is detected. You do not have to disable MS Automatic Updates all together if you don't want. Drivers come in as "Recommended" Updates and so if you turn off the option to treat Recommended updates the same as Critical updates then your drivers will not be replaced.



Also when you manually look at your updates if you see recommended updates you know are not correct for your machine then right-click on them and choose to "Hide This Update".