No sound, Creative Labs, WinME (ATTN: Mart & Noel Paton)

Guys,

I've tried and tried on this sound card thing, but I'm getting nowhere fast.
Can you tell me why windows wants to keep installing a WDM driver
automatically when it's installed? How can I stop this?

I've tried the solution of turning off the pnp.drv option in system.ini as
described in the following Microsoft support article...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;194721

but this hasn't worked either.


Doug

Maybe this is the clue - are you SURE that your sound card AND its drivers
are **FULLY** WinMe compatible?

I suspect that you may either have to settle for the MS WDM drivers or a
compromise. Several manufactures (pre-WinMe) sound cards were never
completely compatible with WinMe and WinMe doesn't always like the bundled
software supplied with 'older' sound cards or the way the manufacturer
'tried' to install the drivers.

I had a Creative AWE64 Gold (top of the range that I bought a couple of
years before WinMe was released) which was great with 95 & 98 but would
never completely install properly with WinME. WDM drivers were almost
'forced' on me and a compromise had to be reached in making it work
satisfactorily with loss of bundled utilities. It never worked as well under
WinMe.

Go back to my previous advice:-
"You could try (physically) removing the new card and (cold) booting
*several* times - checking, each time for oddments/remnants in Device
Manager, again to help flush things out. It might also be worth searching
your system for all 'redundant' Creative and previous sound cards' files
(look also in the Windows\ini folder and sub-folders)."

Then install the drivers ONLY - don't attempt to install the Bundled
Software.
(When you replace the card, don't run the setup.exe files but point the
(PnP) installation Wizard to the folder containing the .inf file and
associated driver files.) It should then 'see' the .inf file and complete
the drivers-only installation.

HTH

Mart


"Doug" wrote in message
...
Guys,

I've tried and tried on this sound card thing, but I'm getting nowhere
fast.
Can you tell me why windows wants to keep installing a WDM driver
automatically when it's installed? How can I stop this?

I've tried the solution of turning off the pnp.drv option in system.ini as
described in the following Microsoft support article...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;194721

but this hasn't worked either.


Doug

But how do I stop the automatic plug and play? When I cold reboot, it
automatically looks for a WDM driver.

Doug

"Mart" wrote in message
...
Maybe this is the clue - are you SURE that your sound card AND its drivers
are **FULLY** WinMe compatible?

I suspect that you may either have to settle for the MS WDM drivers or a
compromise. Several manufactures (pre-WinMe) sound cards were never
completely compatible with WinMe and WinMe doesn't always like the bundled
software supplied with 'older' sound cards or the way the manufacturer
'tried' to install the drivers.

I had a Creative AWE64 Gold (top of the range that I bought a couple of
years before WinMe was released) which was great with 95 & 98 but would
never completely install properly with WinME. WDM drivers were almost
'forced' on me and a compromise had to be reached in making it work
satisfactorily with loss of bundled utilities. It never worked as well
under
WinMe.

Go back to my previous advice:-
"You could try (physically) removing the new card and (cold) booting
*several* times - checking, each time for oddments/remnants in Device
Manager, again to help flush things out. It might also be worth searching
your system for all 'redundant' Creative and previous sound cards' files
(look also in the Windows\ini folder and sub-folders)."

Then install the drivers ONLY - don't attempt to install the Bundled
Software.
(When you replace the card, don't run the setup.exe files but point the
(PnP) installation Wizard to the folder containing the .inf file and
associated driver files.) It should then 'see' the .inf file and complete
the drivers-only installation.

HTH

Mart


"Doug" wrote in message
...
Guys,

I've tried and tried on this sound card thing, but I'm getting nowhere
fast.
Can you tell me why windows wants to keep installing a WDM driver
automatically when it's installed? How can I stop this?

I've tried the solution of turning off the pnp.drv option in system.ini
as
described in the following Microsoft support article...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;194721

but this hasn't worked either.


Doug

I didn't think that you could 'stop the automatic plug and play'. AFAIK,
WinMe will always 'automatically look' for a driver - any driver - until or
unless it is satisfied that one is installed.

As I implied in my last post - when you replace the card, don't run the
setup.exe files but point the (PnP) installation Wizard to the folder (on
the manufacturers CD or 'exploded' download) containing the .inf file and
associated driver files.) It should then 'see' the .inf file and complete
the drivers-only installation.

I know that I've asked before but! Are you sure that you have the correct
WinMe Drivers? Have you looked on the Creative Labs site? There are drivers
available from there. Also take a look at "System Sounds May Not Work After
Upgrading to Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition"
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;241092
In fact have look on the MS Knowledge Base for issues with sound cards and
WinMe. Both WinMe and Creative Labs SB Live! 5.1 are both past their 'sell
by' date and are no longer supported, so you may never find an 'official'
solution.

Did you get any further with remming the various lines in system.ini?

Really out of new ideas now!

Mart


"Doug" wrote in message
...
But how do I stop the automatic plug and play? When I cold reboot, it
automatically looks for a WDM driver.

Doug

"Mart" wrote in message
...
Maybe this is the clue - are you SURE that your sound card AND its
drivers
are **FULLY** WinMe compatible?

I suspect that you may either have to settle for the MS WDM drivers or a
compromise. Several manufactures (pre-WinMe) sound cards were never
completely compatible with WinMe and WinMe doesn't always like the
bundled
software supplied with 'older' sound cards or the way the manufacturer
'tried' to install the drivers.

I had a Creative AWE64 Gold (top of the range that I bought a couple of
years before WinMe was released) which was great with 95 & 98 but would
never completely install properly with WinME. WDM drivers were almost
'forced' on me and a compromise had to be reached in making it work
satisfactorily with loss of bundled utilities. It never worked as well
under
WinMe.

Go back to my previous advice:-
"You could try (physically) removing the new card and (cold) booting
*several* times - checking, each time for oddments/remnants in Device
Manager, again to help flush things out. It might also be worth
searching
your system for all 'redundant' Creative and previous sound cards' files
(look also in the Windows\ini folder and sub-folders)."

Then install the drivers ONLY - don't attempt to install the Bundled
Software.
(When you replace the card, don't run the setup.exe files but point the
(PnP) installation Wizard to the folder containing the .inf file and
associated driver files.) It should then 'see' the .inf file and
complete
the drivers-only installation.

HTH

Mart


"Doug" wrote in message
...
Guys,

I've tried and tried on this sound card thing, but I'm getting nowhere
fast.
Can you tell me why windows wants to keep installing a WDM driver
automatically when it's installed? How can I stop this?

I've tried the solution of turning off the pnp.drv option in
system.ini
as
described in the following Microsoft support article...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;194721

but this hasn't worked either.


Doug