Would disabling/uninstalling these break stuff?

BootyDustBandit · January 16, 2019

I have a laptop that I rebuilt recently and I installed a fresh copy of windows 10 and along with it came a bunch of things I have/haven't seen before. In task manager, I look at the apps that start automatically when I boot windows and I found 3 things I haven't seen before when installing wndows on a laptop/desktop.
1- Conexant High Definition audio
(here is where I get even more confused)
2- Smart Audio CPL (32-Bit)
The publisher of both is Conexant systems.
3-FMAPP Application, which I know is bad and I should get rid of because of the whole ability to log what keys you press, plus it breaks things all over the place anyways.
so, why do I have two separate audio drivers and which one do I kill, if any? (except FMAPP which I already properly uninstalled, I have just never seen it in person before on a Laptop/PC)

EDIT- I have also discovered standard Dolby audio drivers installed as well, so what is conexant and why do I have it?

CIubFoot · January 16, 2019

Windows 10 installs drivers automatically when it detects hardware, but definitely not full blown not applications (like Smart Audio CPL/FMAPP) so that's very odd.

Where did you get your ISO? These should definitely not be on your system if you have a clean copy of Windows from Microsoft's website.

LogicalDrm · January 17, 2019

First two are your audio drivers. First is actual driver and second it's interface. Third one I don't know. I think that's fine to uninstall or disable. With Dolby you can decide, it doesn't remove audio drivers, just Dolby encoding. Generally drivers are something you shouldn't worry about too much. They don't use resources or cause any other such harm.

BootyDustBandit · January 21, 2019

On 1/16/2019 at 8:43 AM, CIubFoot said:

Windows 10 installs drivers automatically when it detects hardware, but definitely not full blown not applications (like Smart Audio CPL/FMAPP) so that's very odd.

Where did you get your ISO? These should definitely not be on your system if you have a clean copy of Windows from Microsoft's website.

I got it off of their website, the dolby audio applications and such I have to assume are included onboard maybe? because it is a lenovo laptop, they wont even let you replace the damn internet card without making you do a modded bios flash, if you dont you can even get to the bios.