Chris,
I have a very old PC and when I upgraded to Vista Ultimate (32 Bit) it
recognized my sound card as a Creative Live! 24 5.1 or some such thing. The
sound work fine, but when I would reboot the volume would be wide open. Of
course, this had nothing whatsoever to do with the speakers. I decided to
upgrade to a newer, Vista compatable sound card and I haven't had any
problems since. You didn't give any specifics on the hardware, so this post
may be way off base. If your card is supposed to be Vista compatable, you
may want to check for newer drivers. If it is an older card, you may want to
budget a sound card upgrade.
Benny