Came across an interesting issue this week with one of my clients who has just upgraded to Windows 7 on his pc (x86/32 bit). His pc hardware included a Creative Labs SB200 sound card, which Windows 7 recognized but said was not compatible with the operating system. I know I could have easily gone out and bought a new sound card but I figured I would try a few things before going down that route. If you do a search for the driver on the Creative Labs site all you will find are drivers that list for Windows 2000 and XP. I tried downloading the XP file and then using Windows 7 compatibility mode to install it, but that didn’t work. So I kept looking and found a version of the Creative Labs Sound Driver on the Dell site – So I decided to try it and “boom”, there it was. Here are the steps I took
- Downloaded the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (LINK) http://ftp.us.dell.com/audio/R80459.EXE (http://ftp NULL.us NULL.dell NULL.com/audio/R80459 NULL.EXE)
- Once Downloaded – Right click on the R80459.exe file –> Left Click on Properties. This will bring up the properties screen. On the properties screen put a check next to “Run this program in compatibility mode” (and select Windows XP SP3) and also select “Run this program as Administrator”.
3. Once you have done that select ok, then double click R80459.exe. During the install you will get prompted for the location you wish to save your file. I recommend just leaving the default location.
4. The install will now run and install your drivers. At the end of the install it will still appear that the install did NOT work. Reboot your pc. After the reboot you should have sound……..Enjoy
**The instructions list Windows 7 – However, should work exactly the same under Windows Vista.
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