The Continuing Nightmare of Microsoft Vista

I've been without sound on my PC for over a week now. Just as I solved my longterm problem inability to open the Control Panel (uninstall Divx) I lost my sound. Well today being in an awkward mood I decided to hunt down the problem. I went into the newly rediscovered control panel and wandered up and down. In Control-Panel-Sound-Playback-Sounds I tried to get it to play the sample sounds eg Default Beep nowt.

Anyway wandering around in Control-Panel-Sound-Default-Playback-Device-Levels I eventually noticed a TINY icon indicating sound switched off, clicked it and Bob's Your Auntie I've got my sound back!

My complaint is that I'm supposed to be a computer expert using Windows since Windows 3.1 (& Dos before that) so if it took me a week!

The new Vista Sound Control Panel applet seems alien to me, why did they change it I never had trouble with the old on XP????