To be more specific - the key to allow full resolution playback of the advanced resolution audio tracks exists on the hardware on the soundcards that allow it, not in the software players. Due to the way that Vista disallows direct hardware access of the soundcards this system gets completely screwed up. However, Creative has much bigger fish to fry in trying to get OpenAL to work.

Strange thing happened today...
I have my gpu at guarantee and as I have an OEM-version of Vista, I figured it would start to nag at me about changed hardware (I have my friend's 8800GTX, while my card is at repair). It did, but I didn't call to MS, because there is 30 days time and my GPU would change again once I get it back. Anyway, today Vista just activated itself... I don't come up with any reasonable explanation why it suddenly accepted the activation (it has been denying activation for about 3 weeks now) without me calling to them?
Anyway, the whole activation scheme is really annoying and having to call for reactivation after changing hardware is just totally nuts!
Talk about punishing paying customers...

Yes, it is a pain, MS. Had to go through that twice when I had XP and upgraded my computer. I'm with a Vista system now, and it being a Dell under warranty for a year I'm not planing on upgrading it for awhile. But I do understand the reactivation woes there

I had that the first time i install vista, the other 2 times i believe now i had heard i would have problems, but it just activated itself.

I just assumed that as i had gone through that activation process via the phone it got 'a mark' next to the key saying its allowed for any future activations.

Odd, I have yet to see a single issue with Vista on my end, well, except Bioshock, but I resolved that one

that reminds me, i do have a recurring problem on vista with my GFX card.

I believe if the screensaver starts, but it can be other things i have yet worked out, the graphics in games is all texturised, got random pixels all over that arent being produced correctly. a restart resolves this and i have heard its an issue with vista and not cleaning out graphics emmory correctly sometimes. Anyone know about this?

Seen that sometimes with my Nvidia card, not sure however on a solution Dave.

If it's with the screensaver, I know a very simple work around: Disable the screensaver

My screensaver is disabled with Vista. Dang thing would kick in too often and yes mess up graphics a bit on what I was doing. Since disabling, haven't seen my graphics mess up, unless I'm playing a bad rom on my emulators

I just updated my direct X as well, games are running alot smoother now. I also used BlackViper's tweeks to shutdown alot of unneeded crap going on too. So system is tweeked alot more for gaming and graphics design

Going to get an factory OC'd 3870 to replace my 2900Pro. I'm happy ;=)
Rest of my machine is starting to need upgrade, 4400+ (though oc'd one) is really getting old. There is no real performance difference between my old 2900Pro and 8800GTX (that I have until I get my new card), except if I up AA-settings... So, the bottleneck is the processor. Well, sometime this year...

P.S.
Really quiet around here lately