Creative Sound Blaster Play USB sound card installation on server Windows 2012 R2 OS.

Creative Sound Blaster Play USB sound card does not officially support running on Windows Server 2012 R2 or any other windows server OS. Will this work? Let’s give it a try and find out if it will run.

In this test, a server box installed with Windows Server 2012 R2 is used. It’s a HP Proliant DL380Gen8.

Once the SB Play is inserted into the USB port, the default stock driver will automatically be installed.

From the device manager, we can see that the device is detected and the generic driver is installed.

Here is the detail of the installed generic USB audio driver.

Next, downloaded the driver/software file from the Creative support page. The file downloaded is a windows 8 driver/software file. The filename is “SBPY_PCDRV_LB_1_02_0003a.exe”.

You can download it here.

During the installation process, you will be prompted with this message, just click on “Install”.

Installation is complete.

Reboot the server so that the newly installed driver is able to take effect. If you do not reboot, it will not work correctly.

After rebooting, the Device Manager will show that the Sound Blaster Play is been detected and the driver installed correctly. You might also noticed that the name has changed to SB Play!.

Here’s the detail of the SB Play USB sound card properties.

The rest of the software that came in the same driver/software package was also successfully install. Software like audio center, audio control panel, volume panel etc.

Here’s the Audio Center software.

 Click on Speaker->Bass Settings to access the bass boost feature of this sound card. This will greatly increase the bass level. Bass junkies will love this function.

And here is the Audio Control Panel.

And lastly, here’s the Volume Panel.

Once last thing that you should take note is that the status LED on the sound blaster should always be on. It’s an indication that the device is detected and drivers for it is working well. However, if the drivers are not correctly installed, the status LED will not turn on.

Hope this is helpful for anyone out there who is considering to install this SB Play! USB sound card for their server. :)