Windows 10: WU installed the wrong soundblaster driver - card no longer works

I have a Soundblaster Z series card for use with Cubase. Today there was no sound. I looked in device manager and it was listed as a different card - Recon3D. Updates confirmed the wrong driver had been installed today.

I've uninstalled + reinstalled the card about 10 times today using the SB installer, manually in device manager, using Revo etc (all with restarts) and nothing will make the card operate. I've tried different PCI-e. The card either reverts to thinking its the Recon3D or shows as SB-Z but doesn't work - I get the message 'the current selected audio device is disabled, not present, not supported by the application or has unplugged jack connections'. I also tried a system restore but still zilch.

While I was doing the above, I disabled auto driver updates in gpedit - to no avail.

The Creative forum says this is a common problem. Creative say it's a WU issue. Either way I can't play my keyboard.

A Windows 10 reinstall would be a major hassle. Any ideas ?

:)

 

Cannot bar a specific driver (that crashes a Win10 Pro x64 pc) from getting installed via Windows Update

There is a specific driver that is to not be installed on a specific Win10 Pro x64 laptop. This driver is for a discrete GPU that is deactivated in Device Manager and no longer working (in a refurbished pc). Every time this driver gets installed, said pc
crashes. Other than that, WU works smoothly. The wushowhide app was used to prevent this driver from getting installed; however, WU respects this setting for a few hours only — after that, the not-to-be-installed driver gets eventually installed
by WU. And, of course, a crash-loop ensues. I'm therefore asking how to make Windows 10 and WU ignore that driver
for ever. How can this be done?

[Moved from: Windows / Windows 10 / Windows update, recovery, & backup]

 

windows audio service is not responding AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN

Hi

From your information it appears that you are trying to install a Soundblaster driver from Creative.com for a SoundBlaster audio card? (File Name : SBRP_CD_L13_1_02_03.exe)

The Onboard audio chip for the Gigabyte Motherboard requires a special driver from Gigabyte.

G1.Sniper 5 - Support & Downloads: Creative Audio driver -
RC1.11


OS:Windows 10 32bit,Windows 10 64

G1.Sniper 5 (rev. 1.x) | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Regards

 

I would go to settings an choose go back to previous version of Windows and see if that fixes it, but you only have 10 days to do that I think. I had a few problems with the latest WU 1709 I believe and reverted back to 1703.

 

I decided to install the Soundblaster card (and Cubase etc) in a different pc, and everything works fine - showing that the card wasn't faulty, it was a Windows driver update problem. It seems that once the wrong driver has given the SB card a different ID, it sticks and even uninstalling the wrong driver doesn't fix it. According to the Creative forum, this SB + WU problem has been around for a few years, but Microsoft haven't addressed the issue.

Weekly Macrium backups from now on.

 

Yep....this started back in windows 8/8.1. I experienced this with AMD driver for my XFX AMD 6970D. It would install the windows generic 1.0 driver and would kill my sound.