The class installer denied install or upgrade for this device

O.K., I have now tried to post this question three times. Hopefully three

times is a charm.

I am running Windows XP SP3 Home. My daughter has an identical computer to

mine. Originally I was managing her mp3 player (a Creative Zen) from my

computer. No problems. She wanted to do it on her computer and is now

having problems.

We put the software on her computer and at the end of the install, it asks

to connect the mp3 player. We did this and it said that the install was

complete and a success, however, when I tried to manage some songs, the

computer said that the player wasn't connected.

I didn't understand this, so I uninstalled the software and tried again.

This time at the end of the install, the computer would not recognize the

connectivity of the player, so the install wasn't successful, but the first

time it was.

So, I uninstalled the software again. This time I tried hooking up the

player first and letting the new hardware wizard take care of things. It

recognized the hardware and said to install the CD that came with the player.

I did, and it didn't work. I received an error message stating that install

wasn't successful because "the class installer denied install or upgrade for

this device." I tried a second time, but this time said for the computer to

use the internet to find the right software. It came up with the same

message.

I didn't understand why, so I went into device manager to look for the

player. It was there under portable player with a yellow question mark next

to it. I am still not sure how device manager recognizes and names the

player, but the computer says that the player isn't connected to the

computer.

I opened the properties for the device driver and found that it had error

code 28 on it, which means that installation was incomplete or unsuccessful.

So, I tried to disable and enable it, in the hopes of "rebooting" it. That

didn't work. Then I tried to upgrade the driver. That didn't work either.

I uninstalled whatever I had, turned off the computer, rebooted the computer,

and tried again, but this time set the driver signing option to allow the

software anyway. It still didn't work. NO GO! Same message: the install

was not completing because the class installer wouldn't let it.

Question: What is a class installer and why won't it let install of my

driver/software for the mp3 player? My understanding was that a class

installer was something that said that the software that was trying to be

installed was incompatible with your operating system. Is that true?

Next, I went to the Creative Zen website and found out that the software is

compatible with XP, so now I am really confused. Their only fixes were an

mp3 recovery tool or upgrading of the firmware. Neither option worked for me

because you mp3 player had to be "connected" to the computer for it to work.

Obviously, since the computer won't recognize connectivity, those aren't an

option. The only other option they had was to use the recovery mode itself

on the mp3 player. I did that and deleted the firmware in order to install

the new suff, however, they neglect to tell you that you should make sure you

have a complete download of the firmware first before you try that. Now, I

have erased the firmware on the playerand don't have any firmware on it any

longer, thus I can't run the thing at all. CAn't put the new stuff on cause

the computer won't recognize the player. Also, they didn't have some sort of

download for an updated driver or something to make the computer recognize

the mp3 player.

So, what are the options here? Is there a way to get around the class

installer and make the computer recognize my mp3 player? I think if I could

do that, then I could download the new firmware and get this thing up and

running again. Any ideas? PLease help. I am just a naive Mom and this is

too much for my very little brain. I have been working on this for 8 hours

straight now. Needless to say, I have a headache. I know more about the

device manager and drivers and device signatures and compatibility issues and

troubleshooters and wizards than I want to know about.

Any help at this point would be appreciated.