I finally found the software to install a webcam which has been laying around a few years.  I installed the software and it put in updates that took an hour to download and install.  It has additional software for facial recognition which I installed after playing with the webcam awhile.  Anyways the facial software wanted a password I don't have and would not proceed to the next step.  I believe what has happened is the facial
software will not let me in the win 8.1 setup with user name Carl_2 ,  I can not get to the user name Carl which is what I'd been using.  So I have a different desktop and most of the program shortcuts are gone.
Maybe if I use control panel and remove the facial software.
Carl2

One of the nice things about Linux
is that old webcams often work fine.
It may be a good way to troubleshoot.

  No reply yet, not sure why I can't just sign in as the other Carl, Maybe I'll just take out the facial for now and give it a try.
Carl2

  I'm not sure how I did it, maybe I signed out, so I do get to my original desktop, for some reason I have to sign in now. it would be nice to be able to delete an account the one I don't use.  Never had more than one account on a computer before.
Carl2

Can be troublesome things webcams, I have customers with perfectly working older webcams but there is no modem drivers for them and I can't get many of them to work correctly in Windows 8 or 10. I recently made a customer get a new HD webcam to fix his problem.

Having a second account in windows isn't ideal either, you end up with a lot more temporary files hidden away on C drive and the PC becomes harder to keep clean.

Other than that I'm not sure if I can help much Carl2, you might have to google things. 

  Well after installing the cd software it did a large update from the web, it worked well, haven't used it in 4 years but played around with it.  The problem came when I installed the facial recognition, I remember that worked very well in the past, in this install it asked for a password which I didn't have.  I must have changed users and when restarted it went to different desktop and I was no longer the admin and had to put in the admin password to do anything.  I uninstalled the facial rec and that didn't help,  I changed users and that got me in, tried a few passwords and found one that worked.  It was easy enough to change the password and leave it empty, much quicker start now.  I can also delete a user but I'm a bit afraid to,  I'll have to make a copy of the user files I use and then trying to delete the other user.  I'm thinking they are using the cam with hal,  motion detect triggers hal to say something.  There is no longer motion detect for this cam.
  Sorry about the length of this but I didn't have any idea what I was doing.
Carl2

  I spent a little more time on this and removed the unneeded user files and was able to easily remove the password.  Since I don't have a password for the facial rec there is no sense putting that back in.  There is other motion detection software, maybe it can be used with this cam.
There is a portion of the program that looks like it will connect the vid online which I've done in the past, I haven't tried that reciently.
Carl2

Carl, there is some software that I've used for years with my webcams called YAWcam (Yet Another Webcam). It has motion detection functionality, as well as a tonne of other features that you may (or may not) find useful. I've used it for embedding webcam streams into web pages, internal surveillance (well, spying on the cats in the house), and as a sort of impromptu security system. It's really useful (to me, at least), and it's free! They do ask for a donation if you like the program, and I've donated a few quid to them on a couple of occasions, but it's not a requirement. Who knows? Maybe by now they've also added facial recognition to the package.

Dave,
  There is someone using Hal that set up a cam for use with Hal,  using the motion detection the camera takes a pic, the pic being sent causes hal to speak.  Not sure what I'll do with it at this time, good for taking vids or pics of yourself.  It has it's own processor does quite a bit, expensive toy but I'm glad to see it still works. 
  The person mentioned above is using YAWcam.
Carl2

A while back, I read about some guy who made it his mission to write a whole bunch of web cam drivers for Linux.  So, if the old web cam works in an open source operating system, then that suggests it may be the commercial operating system trying to push new peripheral devices.  It is a matter of simple economics, commercial operating system companies don't make money on old peripherals.

  Linux is still pretty popular, I tried putting Linux in a machine ages ago and I just couldn't get it to work.  I have seen free webcam programs for both Linux and windows on the network.  I was actually surprised that the manufacturer had an update for their cam after all these years.
Carl2