Windows 7 - Windows 7 does not recognize my Creative Live! Value

*mine* was a rant. And, actually, there are *lots* of people all over the net that try to lay the blame for lack of device support squarely at the feet of M$.

it is one of my personal pet peeves, but if that was a joke, then I apologize for going overboard with my response.

Yeah very true about the ranting by alot of people. Haters the lot of them. I will not have time tonight to boot Windows 7 but will get to it tomorrow night and see what the deal is.

Let me clarify again. I'm not asking if the sound card shows up with a problem code or as an unknown device. You've already said that it does not. I'd like to know if there are any other devices (of ANY type) that have a problem code. I'll need to know the PNP ID and problem code for each device with a problem, if there are any. It's possible that there's a connection between the missing sound card and another device with a problem code on your system. Please post back as soon as you have this info. Thanks!

I was able to reproduce the "problem" that some of your are reporting. It turns out that at least some of the cards are actually showing up as "HD Audio" devices in the latest builds instead of unknown devices. They are not described as "Sound Blaster" devices in device manager, either. Look at the hardware ID and compare it to the device you see in XP or Vista and you'll understand. I hope that this clears up the misunderstanding for you all. This device is definitely not "missing" in Windows 7.

I have 2 drives, one with XP and just installed Windows 7 RC on the other. Exact same issue with Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer - fine in XP but not even detected in 7.

Here's what I had to do to fix it:
go to Creative Worldwide Support > X-Fi XtremeGamer
and download Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series driver 2.18.0013

Run the install. This doesn't fix the issue, but after a reboot it makes the card visible in Device Manager. Right click the device > update driver > browse my computer > pick from list > Creative X-Fi Audio Processor (WDM). In my case this caused Device Manager to stop responding, but don't worry, just pretend it is all OK.

I was now able to go to Control Panel > Sound and Creative X-Fi was visible. Set as default and jobs a good'un.

Hope this helps someobody - be interested to hear other peoples experiences with it.

If you were able to install the driver package then the device was already visible in device manager. It just wasn't called "Sound Blaster blah blah blah..." It was called "HD Audio device" because that's what the "best match" driver inf said that it should be called. When you installed the driver from Creative Labs, the best match inf became the new driver package, so the device was renamed according to the new inf.

No it wasn't. As I said, it wasn't visible. And also it fixed it. If you have a better fix posted above I missed it.

Yes, the fix is to look more carefully for the hd audio device before deciding that it's not there. Sorry you missed it.