Windows 7: The mysterious "Creative Gameport" device, again

Very recently, I switched to Windows 7, with the hardware listed in my profile System Spec.

A few times, the "Action Center" has alerted me to a problem with a "Creative Gameport" device not having a driver. In Device Manager, it shows up as a "PCI device" without a driver.

My research suggests that this is a fairly common issue for those using somewhat older Creative sound cards. Apparently, there is no driver for the device; Creative/MS simply dropped support for the gameport device with Windows 7. Some writers were quite irate, as they really wanted to use their gameport in Windows 7.



Thing is, my Audigy 2 ZS doesn't actually have a gameport. I'm pretty sure I know what a gameport would look like, because I previously owned the older SoundBlaster cards that definitely had the old-school, multi-pin joystick connectors (SB Pro, SB AWE 32).

That isn't the case with the Audigy 2 ZS. There simply is no physical connector for a joystick, aka "gameport." All I have are the various 1/8" audio jacks and a FireWire connector (probably for some add-on device I didn't buy).

So what's the deal here?

It's of largely academic interest at this point. Windows 7's Action Center used to bug me about finding a driver for the "Creative Gameport," but I think it finally gave up. I'm still curious why Windows 7 thinks there's a device there that isn't.

Your sound card may contain a connector to add a creative game port, my old Audigy 2 had a separate game port slot so the card could take up two PCI slots or you could take it out.