Cannot get driver working for realtec AC 97' audio  

First of all my computer specs listed are for my home laptop but my question is for my work PC which I recently upgraded to Windows 7.

I upgradede my work PC from XP to 7 a few weeks ago. Prior to the upgrade I ran the upgrade advisory tool and I knew I would have a few minor issues (this being one of them) but for the most part everything should be fine. My problem is that I cannot get my audio to work. I have an exact same machine still running XP and according to that, my audio is using a realtec ac 97' audio driver. I have obviously tried searching and downloading of windows 7 compatable drivers for that hardware. but nothing seems to work.

First of all every driver I have found and tried are self installing ".exe" driver files and cannot find anything where I can manually install through the "add new hardware wizard". The problem with the .exe files is that some of them say "this version is not supported my this version of windows" others freeze halfway through installation, and others seem like they have installed correctly giving me a prompt saying so and requiring me to restart, but once restarted, still nothing.

I have also tried running each of the driver installations in "XP compatability mode" but still the same problems described above. I had a similar issue with my graphics driver and solved it by installing a legacy driver for it. I have tried the same for this audio driver, but like I stated before I only have .exe installation files and cannot manualy search for the driver to install the legacy driver. I do have the original driver (XP driver) that came with my computer and obviously tried that one, but notihng I have tried has worked for me.

Does anyone have a solution to get my audio to work, even if it be a gereric audio driver just to get sound out of my computer, or a version of the driver that I can manually install in legacy mode?

Have you tried downloading the driver from here. The zip file contains the driver.

Realtek

Yes, I have already tried that driver. That is one of the ones that "seem" to install correctly and require a restart, but after the restart nothing has changed. No software was installed and in the device manager the device is still listed under "Other devices: Multimedia Audio Controller" and stated that no driver is installed for this device.