Windows 7: Audio challenged

Hello, I am a total new member to this forum in hopes that this is where I can go to for help (and to help others).

So my delimna is that I cannot get my surround sound to work. and yes! I did look around online before posting.

Here is what I did:
reformatted laptop, reinstalled nvidia GTX 260m driver, installed realted hd audio driver, installed dolby control center.

There is something called dolby live that I dont even get.



I hooked up my laptop to a SONY dolby digital prologic II receiver via hdmi output, and from the receiver to my input lcd tv via hdmi.
How should I go about this to get true surround sound on my system?
I tried tinkering with the settings, nothing really worked.
When i originally got the laptop, there was already realtek hd audio driver installed along with the dolby control center.
Any suggestions? I read stuff about ac3 filters, and this and that but nothing really promising..

EDIT:
I've been able to fix a few errors but the major error still exists, I cannot export audio through my hdmi. It only plays on my laptop speakers. what gives?!
and yes, I went to volume settings and clicked on playback and chose hdmi as default.