Windows Vista Beta 1 - Sound support with VMware v5 build 13124 without VMtools

July 31, 2005 · 1 min read

In my initial post on Installing Vista Beta 1 on VMware v5 build 13124 - Initial Observations I was able to get all the VM hardware to work except the sound card.  The native VMtools provided sound driver just wouldn’t install.  If you look at the sound device in other “working” VMs, like an install of Windows XP, you’ll see that the VMware hardware emulates a Soundblaster PCI.  I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this before but I went to the Soundblaster site and downloaded their Soundblaster PCI 128 driver myself.  To avoid the crazy navigation on their site I’ve linked to the agreement screen of the driver you need.  Download from Creative: Soundblaster PCI 128

I thought about repackaging the driver so it would be a clean install but I don’t want to violate their licensing agreements as far as packaging their driver is concerned.  With that said you’ll have to deal with their installer… but it does work!

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Eric Hammersley

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