Assuming JohnM is the author of REQW, I doubt there's much he can do to help us with the SB Live External. The problem is with Creative's Drivers for the SB-Live-ext. They didn't even publish their first Vista driver until June...6 months after Vista was shipping. On their web site they advertise the Live Ext as "works with Vista", but they aren't real clear about what features don't actually work with Vista...like controlling the line input level. I can't get any of the bundled Creative software including the Creative Mixer Console to function under Vista...possibly user error on my part since the sparse documents Creative does provide seem to indicate at least some pieces should work.
Fortunately for REQW users, it appears we can get by without the Input level control. It's only *really* needed for the loopback calibration, at least with the Radio Shack Meter as microphone. I suppose there could be microphone/mixer setups that don't have enough level control to get into a safe range for the Creative/Vista default setting.
Creative seems to be trying to point the
blame at the changes MS made to the sound API in Vista. Nine months into Vista and Creative still doesn't offer full feature support on any of their products seems unbelievable for the apparent market leader and one time de facto standard setter. I'm not in favor of frivolous lawsuits, but this seems to be treading the thin line of a class action incompetence.
*I just noticed Creative has released another set of drivers as of 8/23...haven't tried these yet, maybe there's been an improvement.
-Brent