I know a guy who has a audigy audio card. One fine day, he could only get sound out of the front speakers. After checking his settings, Xp told him he only had a standard soundblaster card. He checked with his dealer and apparently XP writes info into the flash area of the Audigy card, wiping out some of the data there. XP can do this at any time. The only cure is to factory replace the card. EVERY TIME!

Anyone else heard this.

Sounds like the fault of the card maker allowing such a destructive thing to be done to its hardware from a simple software bug...

Which bug is that? XP?

Perhaps, but if the card has upgradeable flash areas, the OS shouldn't stomp on it.

Isn't it technically Creative's fault for writing really bad drivers that can stomp on the EEPROM on the card? I would have thought that all access to the hardware should be through the drivers that Creative provide. Unless of course this is because of bad PNP style hardware detection...

I've got an original SB Live card that works fine with XP. I haven't heard of anybody else having this problem but I haven't been looking.

- Trevor

Maybe, but I wouldn't put it past M$ to mandate that ability in their requirements for WHQL accreditation!

I hate to say this.... because I don't mean to rag on anyone
or anything... but...

that's what you get for installing the most devious of
operating systems of all time... if you had any idea of
the other "sneaky" (as you put it) things that xp does...
you'd be outraged..

and blaming the card manufacturer? I can't see that as
a very valid point... you can't expect the world to compensate
for the devious nature of one company, or even more specifically, one operating system.

if they did that... new hardware would take years longer
to be released.