Creative problems...

A friend of mine decided to upgrade from XP to Vista Ultimate. He asked for assistance and I helped. I've spent 6 hours trying to install his Creative Audigy 2 zs . What I've encountered so far .

1. Everything installs, after reboot, no sound output detected. The Card fails to start .
2. Removed, safe mode, driver sweeper, re-install.
3. I tried compatibility mode: I set the disc to install with XP Sp2, half way through the installer I get " you need windows 98 or older".
4. Removed everything again. Cleaned up the registry and tried again.
5. Reboot, stick the disc in again, install...install successfully, reboot, device failed to start .
6. I even tried a force install and the card will not turn on .


What can I do? I am all out of options .

 

Find the right driver. Some cards refuse to work in Vista without the Vista driver.

 

I tried 5 creative ones, 1 K-Pax, and now I am trying KX. I got sound with KX but the KX Mixer fails to load .

Talk about a first Vista impression for someone .

 

I managed to make it work but...it is far from the crisp XP sound . I installed the latest KX drivers and winamp with ASIO. Unbelievable . Shame on you Creative !!!

 

The jerks in the "Not so" Creative marketing group want you to buy new hardware because they won't make any money on Vista drivers for older cards. The real kicker in this, is that the card in question was actually current at the time Microsoft published the Vista driver specs to all the hardware companies. The market jerks at ""Not so" Creative, saw this as a sales opportunity and refused to allow the new drivers to be written.

Gary

 

It broke with KX drivers a few hours later. From the moment I posted that message, to the moment I am posting this, I installed Vista x86 Ultimate 5 times. I had to swap PCI slots because after every failed install my product was not detected by the Creative setup, yet Vista said it was there. I had to mix Daniel's ISO with Rob's modded drivers from YouPax. I spoke to both on messenger and they've been very helpful. Without them we would be in trouble . It works now but :

1. No EQUALISER, Mixer, THX Console. These use direct sound and the new audio layer in Vista is reserved for newer Creative products.
2. I adjust the bass, treble, from the Vista console !!


In any case, Microsoft cannot be faulted at all. Most companies got their s h i t together and released drivers and software for older products. Creative is not one of them and they are forcing me to buy a new card. Okay, 90 % of the new X-Fi cards are rubbish compared to the Audigy 2 ZS (my friend has) and the Platinum Ex I have. Not a big incentive there for me. Okay, let's say I find one (the latest Creative Suite 2008 for X-Fi supports everything in Vista from THX to you name it) where do I stick it, or where does my friend stick it? They use PCI E and we got old computers on normal PCI.

No matter how you flip it, the consumer is screwed anyways.

Bottom line, my friend is happy he has better sound than with KX but he is a bit worse off from XP. I made a direct comparison with my Senn's and I can say that they are not far apart but there is still something missing....

Microsoft should pay me for convincing my friend to try Vista. The heroic efforts I made to install creative....I would understand if Vista just came out and no support but after 3 years? Creative shoot yourself!