If you are talking about the software that comes with Creative sound cards,
as opposed to just the drivers themselves, all I can say is: lotsa luck.
I experienced similar problems with Audigy 1 and 2 cards under XP, the
drivers work but only some of the Creative software for controlling sound
card functions work.
Often the Creative self test software would fail to identify that a Creative
card was installed in the system, one of my all time favorite bugs. Device
manager identifies the cards properly and says they are working properly
because the basic drivers work, which is all Device Manager sees.
Creative was of no help, denied the problem existed, said that the behavior
seen under the self test was either normal or could not happen, and asserts
there was nothing wrong with the sound cards at all because the basic
drivers worked. I tried these cards in AMD and Intel systems with a variety
of chip sets and only once got one Audigy 2 card to work properly with all
the supplied software.
I have two Audigy cards sitting in my drawer right now.
Whatever the limits of motherboard based sound at least it works like its
supposed to.
Remember your experience every time you read a positive review of Creative
sound cards and think about whether the same might apply to positive reviews
of other software and hardware products, particularly Vista.