Creative are screwing around again
Get the community driver packs here
View the complete unedited thread here
My hatred for Creative is apparently not only justified, but shared by thousands.

An excerpt:

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don’t have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O’Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

Forum Moderator
Creative Labs

Essentially, Creative has a bad history of customer support. Their driver packs typically provide less features than are advertised. Whenever a new operating system comes along (or in my case, even a new service pack for an existing operating system), Creative throw their hands in the air and shout “no!” — they refuse to support older products on new operating systems. At all.

Some of you might say, “fair enough” — but that’s not entirely the issue here. A forum member, Daniel_K, was packaging and releasing — for free — to the public updated driver packs that as I understand it were created using chopped-up existing driver packs. This was all fine and dandy until of course Creative stepped in and instructed Daniel_K to discontinue this activity, as apparently it was a breach of Creative’s copyrights.

It’s absolutely ridiculous; but you don’t need me to tell you that. You can read the thread here.

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CREATIVE SOFTWARE IS THE SHITTIEST SHIT I’VE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF DEALING WITH.

Seeing as I’ve re-installed Windows (see previous post), I’ve needed to re-install all my drivers. This has been relatively easy, as everything on my motherboard is taken care of by a single installer from nVidia, and my video card is taken care of by another single installer file, both of which are easily accessible from the nVidia website.

However, Creative on the other hand don’t make things so easy. I have the pleasure of owning a Creative Sound Blaster Live! OEM, a sound card that apparently doesn’t exist in any driver package that Creative distributes from their website. Even though when I input the model number, SB0220, it tells me what my card is, and what driver I need, when I download the driver and try to run it, I get an error message saying something along the lines of:

Setup could not detect any Sound Blaster Audio card on your system.

Please ensure that your Sound Blaster hardware is properly installed before running this Setup program.

Setup will now exit.

Not only that, but using Creative’s autoupdate site is about as much help. None. It detects that I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 card, lists the driver version as being very old, and promptly informs me that no software updates are necessary because I already have the latest version.

A big FUCK YOU to Creative, who DO NOT supply software for this sound card. Sure, it’s old, and sure, it costs $35 for me to go out and buy a NEW Sound Blaster Live! that does the exact same job, but how about I don’t simply because I SHOULDN’T FUCKING HAVE TO! AND FUCKING CREATIVE SHOULD SUPPLY THE PROPER FUCKING DRIVERS!

The driver version I managed to install from DriverGuide.com is 5.12.01.0252; this version is too old for me to install the Creative Play Center so I can configure my speakers properly. However, when I try to install any of the driver update packs, they all tell me that I don’t have any Creative Sound Blaster cards installed. At all.

Yet, I somehow managed to install some version of the drivers, those being a hackjob set I found on DriverGuide.com. I think they’re taken from the original installation media, but I can’t be sure. They do give me sound, but it’s pretty shitty. I bet ten bucks that I can’t get 3D or any kind of surround working, but I’ll see soon, when I install Counter-Strike later.

Update:

Wow! OMG! I found some drivers that have allowed me to update the version to 5.12.1.0290, the version that the latest driver patch says the drivers need to be before it works, however, guess what? NONE OF THE SOFTWARE I’VE DOWNLOADED FROM THE CREATIVE WEBSITE CAN DETECT THAT I HAVE A CREATIVE SOUND CARD INSTALLED! EVEN WITH THESE “UPDATED” DRIVERS THAT I’VE FOUND! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! I HATE YOU CREATIVE!

Update Two:

FINALLY I GOT IT WORKING! I was able to download an ISO of the original installation media for the SB0228 and SB0229 cards, slightly different from my SB0220, but IT WORKED! And it was all possible due to the dedication of the users over at the Creative forums and this thread in particular, where you will find a link to this site where you will find the original installation CDs for the Sound Blaster Live! and various other Creative products. So hopefully this rant of mine can help others in future who are having trouble installing their old Creative sound cards!

I’ll just put a few keywords here for Google: sound blaster live install driver oem original media trouble error

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