Hi Sherry,

Yes, the soundfont capability is there, or should be. Better to say it was there once, I suppose.

The card is SB Live Value Digital 1024 WDM. It seems to be the WDM that causes the problem. I couldn't find drivers even on that site that claims they have about every one ever issued.

There is the further complication that ME was on this machine when new and the XP upgrade kit arrived about a month later. So the bundled CDs are for ME.

When I had the big crash, the techie at Dell instructed me to wipe the drive, install ME, then upgrade to XP again. The ME/2000 Creative CD envelope is open, so I must have reinstalled that. Then the Dell upgrade disk would have made the changes necessary for XP. Since then there was an update at Microsoft.

I fooled with things and lost all sound and the computer itself until I did a system restore in safe mode. At least now, I have SB A and SB B. I can also load Audio HQ, but when I click on Soundfonts, Devices, Speakers--or any other--I am told I need to re-install Audio HQ. Ha!

In the Creative directory, I found a restore program (restore audio settings to original defaults), but I have resisted trying that one out, as it looks to me like I might have a mixed installation here--two of the SF files are repeated in different sub-folders of the creative directory, and some programs can't find .dll files, which are in a folder under creative/software update. There isn't even an entry in add/remove programs, so I can't tell much from that (or uninstall anything).

At the moment I'm not ready to get a new computer for the sound card, but I am thinking of SB 7.1 (mine is 4.4, or somesuch).

For right now, though, while I can't add soundfonts, I have excellent sound. I guess that's something .

best,
mgj