Can someone give me some insight on my audio software?

so here is the deal i recently had to do a system restore from factory image, after the restore i tunes would not work properly.i solved that problem by installing the latest service package from microsoft. after i fixed that problem i proceeded to hook up surround sound, and when i went into the realtek audio manager it told me that, the version was for vista only (im running windows7 64bit). so i went to realtek and downloaded the latest version ac97 for vista/win7. was successful i was able to use the realtek manager again and set up everything properly, im currently using itunes for music. but alas something is now wrong with media player, it says i am missing some codex, and realtek has converted back to telling me its running the vista version and i have to download the latest version again. im using firefox which allows me to view recent downloads so i reinstalled realtek ac97 and it worked fine for a bit but then converted back to telling me i'm running the vista version again. im sure the fix is simple what am i overlooking? as of now audio seems to be running fine, i tunes works, media player is missing some codex so it won't run properly. and realtek audio manager will not open again claiming i need to download the ac97 version again. anyone with any insight? i have exhausted all the options i can think of.