A couple of days ago, in a futile attempt at getting my computer mic to work, I downloaded a driver from the thing's website. After installing, my mic was still broken and it had raped my computer's sound - it said no speakers were connected, etc. So I uninstalled it, but now my speakers are really, really quiet and every program has it's own volume slider.

Before this, I'd have my sound on "5", and that was plenty. Now I need to have it on "15" to even hear anything, and every single program's volume needs to be controlled individually. So while before I could click the speaker icon in my tray, set it to "5" and be done with it, I need to click the icon, set it to 15, then open up the "Mixer" and change all the different programs. I can use my keyboard's sound control to turn the computer's general volume down (so no windows noises play - but I turned them all off to begin with) but my browser still makes noise, a game I'm playing, etc. No effect is had on other programs.

I had a poke around the settings but couldn't find anything, and a Google search yielded nothing similar. Any ideas? It's incredibly frustrating and makes using my computer a hassle.

^ Try resetting your sound card's default settings in the control panel. If that doesn't work I don't know what to do.

In an attempt to sexify my computer I've recently been customizing everything I can, but I still can't manage to change the color of the toolbars to something more appetizing. To make matters worse Microsoft no longer supports customizable themes, and I can't seem to work out the appearance settings correctly under the Properties menu. Someone needs to help this computer-illiterate out.

You installed a driver for your sound card? Or for your microphone?

You're not able to change colors under Appearance > Advanced?
When you do that, windows will switch from themed appearance to classic view, allowing you to change colors and fade effects of explorer objects. It's fairly straight-forward in XP, but to be honest, I haven't tried it in either Vista or 7... so...

My microphone.

A guide suggests uninstalling and reinstalling from the Device Manager. My concern is that uninstalling means it just goes bye bye and I **** everything up more. I tried disabling and enabling it to no avail.

Uninstall your microphone driver and try reinstalling your sound card's driver. If you can find an updated driver from the sound card's manufacturer, go with that.
The microphone driver probably screwed with your sound card driver.

What kind of microphone is it? You normally don't need to install a microphone driver, as your sound card uses its driver to handle the microphone operation on its own interface in most cases.

In trying to reinstall my sound card's driver I uninstalled my ethernet cable's driver. It took only an hour to fix the ethernet problem caused by my trying to fix the sound problem that was caused by my trying to fix the microphone problem.

I'm about ready to just say "**** it" and deal with my raped sound system.

I suppose I downloaded the wrong drivers to fix the mic and it ****ed everything up. User error. Extreme user error.

Haha... Well good thing you got your ethernet controller back up. Now you can download your latest sound card driver which should get you back up and running fine. I still don't know why you'd need a microphone driver unless it's some kind of special mic, so when you get your sound card driver installed then we can see about figuring out the mic issue.
As far as most situations are concerned, you just plug the mic in and
adjust the mic volume in the audio mixer and you're good to go.

You mind filling me in on what kind of mic it is and how you're using it? As in... a music program, or voice chat, etc... Mainly because there are software audio setting considerations separate from the OS's sound settings that might be a factor.

It was more just a last ditch effort to get the thing working since I'm lazy and poor and don't feel like buying a new one. It's just some ****ty $20 thing I bought 2 years ago, for games and Skype and garbage.

Can't figure out what the hell drivers to download since I can't figure out what my sound card is. :/ Tried a number of methods now.

Then I'm assuming you have an onboard sound card.
What kind of computer is it? (Manufacturer, model, desktop/laptop)
I can find out what you have in the computer, or you can, either way. The info will be available on the manufacturer website or any other website selling the specific computer.

Once you have the sound card manufacturer and model, you can then go to the manufacturer website's support section and download the latest driver for that model.

As far as your microphone... since it's a standard mic for PC use, it's not going to require any special drivers. Your mic problem was a result of either incorrect audio settings or your physical microphone jack isn't functioning, or the microphone itself is broken. Once you get your sound card driver installed, verify that your microphone channel is not muted and is turned all the way up and that it's plugged into the correct port on your computer. If those settings are correct and your audio settings in-game and on Skype are correct, your mic should work barring any physically broken components.