DIRECTX 8 PROBLEMS -
(this tip grabbed from Saz's great thread - kudos to him!)
I just found this last night, guys. You no longer have to reformat your drive to get DirectX 8.0 off your system! This site has a utility called DirectX Buster that will unload ANY version of DirectX, even 8.0, without going through a system reformat!
http://www.directxbuster.de/index_e.html
The most stable build of the product is DirectX Buster 1.33 build 103.
You'll first need to download a copy of DirectX 7 (or whatever version you wish to return to). You can do this here. When you've downloaded the package, then run DirectX Buster and remove DirectX 8 from your system. Reboot, then reinstall DirectX 7. You're ready to go!
Hope this helps solve a LOT of frustration. Here's one in the eye for Microsuck!
Cheers,
Sazerac