lost sound after Oct 16 critical update

Lost sound from Realtek AC'97 after critical updates. The only sound I get
is an annoying beep from my speakers. I can hear the Line-in from the
digital cable reciever. Device manager shows the Realtek audio installed,
but if I go into the Hardware tab of the sounds and audio device properties
and hightlight Realtek AC'97 and select properties of the multimedia devices
they all show the driver is enabled, but has not started. I uninstalled all
the critical updates from Oct 16, yet that how no effect. I have uninstalled
and reinstalled Realtek AC'97 Audio 2 or more times and still no help. I
can't rollback since system restore is disabled. Any help would be
appreciated