Knowledge Base

Virtual machines utilize a virtual Sound Blaster AudioPCI adapter (or Sound Blaster 16 for older VMware products). Your VMware product documentation discusses installing the adapter in a virtual machine.

Windows Server 2003 does not ship with the drivers for either Sound Blaster adapter. To use sound in a Windows Server 2003 virtual machine, follow the procedures in this article. The first describes how to install the AudioPCI driver that you download from the Creative Web site and the second describes how to install the Sound Blaster 16 driver from a Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM.

Perform the steps below in a virtual machine with the Windows Server 2003 guest operating system running and the virtual sound card installed.

Note: You may need to have the Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM available.

Installing the Sound Blaster AudioPCI Adapter (GSX Server 3 or higher, Workstation 4 or higher)

1. Download the PCI 128 driver from the Creative Labs knowledge base. Go to www.creative.com, then choose the Support menu, then Knowledge Base. After selecting your country information, enter PCI 128 in the Knowledge Base Search By Keyword text field. Browse the results to find the download information.

2. Download the installation file and run it.

3. The installer installs the sbpci.sys driver.

4. Reboot the guest operating system after the installation finishes.

5. Choose Start>Settings>Control Panel, then open Sounds & Audio. Select Enable Windows audio.

Installing the Sound Blaster 16 Adapter (GSX Server 2.5.x or lower, Workstation 3.2.x or lower)

1. Insert a Windows 2000 CD-ROM, then open a Command Prompt window and navigate to the i386 directory.

2. Run the following two commands to extract the needed files:
   expand driver.cab -f:ctlsb16.sys c:\windows\temp
   expand wdma_ctl.in_ c:\windows\temp\wdma_ctl.inf

3. Choose Control Panel>Add New Hardware, then click Next.

4. When prompted, answer Yes, I've already connected the hardware.

5. Select Add a new hardware device from the list, then click Next.

6. Select Install the hardware that I manually select, then click Next.

7. Select Sound, video and game controllers, then click Next.

8. Click Have Disk and browse to C:\Windows\temp.

9. Click wdma_ctl.inf and follow the prompts, choosing to install the unsigned driver.

The virtual sound card should now be operational and listed in device manager.