I still haven’t recieved SP1 through Vista’s autoupdater. In trying to find out why, I discovered that Microsoft won’t upload SP1 to computers with certain drivers on them due to compatibility issues. It turns out mine is one of those computers.
The culprit is my soundcard’s driver. The card is a Creative SB Audigy SE. The driver I have is 5.12.0001.2002. However, according to Microsoft, they will not update to SP1 if a computer has a driver prior to 5.12.1.2006. Okay, no problem, right? Just go get the new driver. Except it turns out Creative no longer offers that driver for some reason I am unable to ascertain. It turns out, furthermore, that Creative no longer has any plans to develop new drivers for my card. (This is according to several other people with my card, though I haven’t found official information to this effect.)
Which means, apparently, I’m stuck with this driver, which prevents me from getting SP1.
So my questions are:
What exactly am I missing out on if I don’t get SP1?
Has anyone heard of this kind of problem wtih SP1 before and if so, is there a workaround?
I’ve seen that some people uninstall their driver, then get SP1, then reinstall the driver, but if there are compatibility issues between SP1 and the drive I’m not sure this is wise. But other than that I can’t imagine what kind of workaround could be finagled here…
Of course I can always get a new sound card but that takes at least a little bit of money.
That’s really messed up that they stopped making drivers for something that not only keeps you from installing a Windows Service Pack in its current state, but is still sold brand new at thousands of Wal-Mart stores around the country! What the hell are they thinking?
I have the same card, and just checked Wal-Mart’s site to verify that they’re still selling it, and indeed they are.
I’m running XP, though, so I’m afraid I don’t have any firsthand advice on the driver situation. Have you tried looking for alternate download sites for the newer driver?
File Name: SB24_VTDRV_LB_1_04_0077.exe
This suite of drivers and applications has been updated and combined for your convenience. It installs the following applications to control your audio device’s settings. For more details, read the rest of this web release note.
Applications included in this release:
Creative Audio Console (for Windows Vista™ only)
Creative Device Control
Creative EAX Console
Creative Speaker Settings
Added Features or Enhancements:
Enables 44.1 kHz sampling format for SPDIF In and Out.
Requirements:
Microsoft® Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
Sound Blaster® Audigy® Value/SE/LS, or Sound Blaster Live!® 24-bit audio devices
Notes:
This pack is only for the Creative Sound Blaster audio devices listed above.
DO NOT install this pack for Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit External.
To install this pack
Download the file onto your local hard disk.
Close all other Windows applications.
Double-click the downloaded file.
Follow the instructions on the screen.
In answer to your other question, you are going to see some major increases in performance and usability with SP1 so I’d try to fix your driver problem. In the end I had to ditch my CL sound card due to general Vista issues - including two being killed by the OS.
I just downloaded the one listed for the Audigy SE, which I think is the same driver you’re pointing me to. I installed it and everything seems to be working alright, but still no SP1 when I check for updates.
-FrL-
ETA And dxdiag still lists the same driver. I think maybe the thing I downloaded still has the same driver as what I already had, included in a bundle with some other things like the Creative Console or whatever its called.
Try this: uninstall everything Creative in Add/Remove Programs. Then kill the CTHELPER.EXE process in Task Manager and run Driver Sweeper to remove the Creative drivers. Reboot, then reinstall the downloaded package.
Okay, nevermind, I guess I checked dxdiag too soon after the reboot or something? Because I just tried windows update again, and now SP1 is available. And so I looked at dxdiag again, and it’s the 2004 driver, not the 2002 driver. So good for me, and thanks everyone.
The dead sound cards were creative labs X-Fi models. My new Vista box came with it and it worked perfectly for a few days until I hibernated. On reboot it made a horrible crackle and died. Got a warranty replacement and within a week (probably post hibernation too) it also died. The box vendor said they’d had a number of failures on Vista machines. I replaced the card with a different make and no problems in the year+ since. This was within the first week or so after Vista RTM.
You can download sp1 from the site rather than through the updater and use it. It is extremely overzealous on the driver compatibility. Of the 28 computers at work, 12 of them would not autoupdate with it, and all of them are now running it with no issue. Same deal with one of my home computers. I wouldn’t postpone updating over something silly, SP1 is a drastic improvement on Vista, and fixed most of the major issues with it. It’s not quite to a XP level of evolution, but it’s getting close, and it’s to the point now that I would never switch back (particularly the 64 bit version, which works amazingly well).
I had to do this. I was getting crashes, BSODs, etc., that the diagnostic would come back and say that SP1 would fix it. So I’d try again to update and no, wasn’t available. I followed the diagnostic utility’s instructions about how to go about getting SP1 if it wasn’t listed as available in the updater, and it walked me through it. The computer has behaved much better - it still won’t run certain older games but I don’t think it’s had a BSOD since, and it has stopped taking several minutes or more to unzip simple zip files.
IIRC, as I followed the directions, I ended up being directed to pick out the ‘intended for distribution on several computers at a site’ larger SP1 upgrade file. See if you can’t find instructions at the MS site on how to download the service pack without going through the updater.
I have no idea why my laptop wasn’t considered acceptable - probably something to do with the sound or video drivers.
Creative’s driver support for Vista sucks. I’ve got an Audigy 2 ZS, and even with the 7/7 drivers mentioned above I get a whole lot of ‘static’ and crackling from my speakers all the time in Vista. It’s a known driver issue with machines that have 4GB or more of RAM in them. Creative claims to have fixed it with their last release, but they haven’t.
I really regret moving to Vista. I have a flatbed scanner that was completely orphaned - HP has no plans to provide a driver for it. My Archos jukebox and an older digital camera won’t work with Vista. I have driver issues with my video card and my sound card. And of course, Vista has plenty of problem of its own.
