Creative... no longer.

I'm fairly brand-loyal.

Way back when I started working with computers, I would swear by Creative Labs. The original Sound Blaster cards were just great, and pretty much set the standard for everybody else.

No more.

A while ago I got my hands on a new SB Live!. After the standard struggle, everything worked.
So far, so not-so-bad.

So I reinstalled my computer (new hard drives tend to do that to you). Big mistake. Big, big mistake.

By this time, I no longer had the original driver CD, so I dutifully scoot off to the Creative site, follow the links and download the latest driver.

It informs me that I don't have a Sound Blaster.

That's interesting, considering that's what I paid for... nice one. So I install the drivers anyway after hunting around the web for anybody else who's had this problem (I am not alone!).

And... no more 5.1 sound... four hours later and many driver reinstalls later, still no more 5.1 sound.

I don't know about you, but I do not have time to waste on this sort of annoyance. I'll just run down to the local geek shop tomorrow and buy a new 5.1 capable card.

Any it won't be a Sound Blaster... it also won't be anything made by Creative.

In fact, I'm annoyed enough that I will never buy anything made by Creative again.