V-Studio 100 ... I must be making this more difficult than it should be

I am struggling with installing the Sonar V-Studio 100 and it's interface to the PC.  My wife purchased the product as a replacement from my AKAI DPS 12i as it is beginning to fail.  It's old, I am old. I get  the failing thing.  I have used the WAVE recorder and it is fairly straight forward but I began to cause myself issues when, within a limited time window, I attempted to install the drivers and software and something went awry.  The software was eventually installed on the Windows 7 64 bit laptop but then was getting the repetitive error stating the driver needed to be uninstalled and then reinstalled. After a few iterations of that fun I uninstalled everything and started over but am still getting the iterative driver error.  I notice that all of the registry variables for the product are still on the laptop under Calkwalk for MIDI Filters, SONAR VS, Control Surfaces etc  The Native Instruments variables are still in the registry for Guitar Rig and Service Center.  I am excited to use this product but I seem to have made a hole for myself, I probably should have backed up the PC before I started but hindsight is always 20/20.  The other thing I found strange is the DAW/WAVE RECORDER light is always on even when the SD card is not in the slot.  Is that normal ? I did some searching and looked at the methods employed to for a similar issue described in the forum but nothing has moved me past the issue at this point.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. we are experiencing a great deal of snow and I have time to play.  Thanks in advance for supporting a newcomer.