Creative Zen Sleek Support?

[MrVideo]

I just bought the Creative Zen Sleek and can't get it to work. The Zen Micro that I currently have works fine.

I am running W2K and it seems that the Creative a**holes revised their support so that it only works under XP. I refuse to run that horrible software.

When I reinstall the SVA-Creative Zen package, it says that it doesn't find the player.

What does it take to get the Zen Sleek to work with Sveta, or am I out of luck and have to take the unit back?

There are no drivers to download on the Creative site for this player. :(

[LtData]

The reason it is probably WinXP-only is that it apparently is linked to WMP10, which is XP-only. So, it looks like you should blame Microsoft, not Creative. Aww, who am I kidding, blame them both! :D

But anyway, don't the requirements for the player say on the box "Windows XP"? If so, did you just assume it would work with your Win2k?
In other news, apparently this player supports the Zen Sleek: http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/ However, it may also be WinXP-Only. You should try it first and make sure it works.

It may turn out that WMP 10 is required for this player to work, which means either get a new player or get another machine that's running WinXP.

[MrVideo]

The reason it is probably WinXP-only is that it apparently is linked to WMP10, which is XP-only. So, it looks like you should blame Microsoft, not Creative. Aww, who am I kidding, blame them both! :D

I blame Creative for going with XP for this product, when all of the other Zens are W2K.

But anyway, don't the requirements for the player say on the box "Windows XP"? If so, did you just assume it would work with your Win2k?
In other news, apparently this player supports the Zen Sleek: http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/ However, it may also be WinXP-Only. You should try it first and make sure it works.

A couple of the web sites I was on that had the product still listed all of the MicroCrap OSs. I never expected a XP only MP3 player. I consider that a stupid move.

So, when I found a store in town that had one, I didn't look at the box. It is after I got it home I discovered the XP only thing. Looking at the box, they had printed up stickers to cover over the old OS requirements.

Thanks for the link, I'm looking into it. If they don't supply the USB driver, then I will have to return the player.

It may turn out that WMP 10 is required for this player to work, which means either get a new player or get another machine that's running WinXP.

I'll return the player. I will not get XP. XP will break 99.9% of my other required software, that cannot, nor will ever, be updated for XP.

I just find it hard to believe that out of all the Zen players, the sleek line requires XP support. The player shouldn't care. It is a USB device, i.e., OS indepenent.

:(

[MrVideo]

While the web page mentions the Zen Sleek in the list of players that are supported, it basically never mentions the player again. If it is lumped in with all of the other Zen players, then there is indeed a problem. The website has you download a Creative driver. Well, the Creative driver does not "see" the sleek. It says to reconnect the device in order to the driver to take effect. Ya, well the device was connected and powered on.

This sucks.

Creative is going to get a piece of my mind.

As for getting a different player, of the 20-40GB players that BestBuy has listed, the only other player is the Zen Touch. Unfortunately the FM tuner is not built into the player.

Is the Zen touch supported with the SVA-CreativeZen driver?

[LtData]

Yes, but it requires the installation of the Creative Software. You may want to double-check to make sure it will install in Windows 2000.

[MrVideo]

Yes, but it requires the installation of the Creative Software. You may want to double-check to make sure it will install in Windows 2000.

I fully understand that. Since the software will not install under W2K, I took the unit back and obtained the Zen Touch.

Now I can't get the Zen Micro to be detected anymore and neither will it detect the Zen Touch. I hate Creative's driver support. It sucks.

I am not happy at the moment, and that is being polite about it.

I'm going to uninstall all Creative software are start over.

UPDATE: I removed everything and started over. This time I installed all of the Creative software. Now the Sveta Creative installer detects and installs the Zen Touch. For some reason, only known to the Creative programmers, it appears that not all of the necessary drivers are installed unless you install their manager. Sucks. At least Sveta now talks to the player :) :) :)

UPDATE #2: I lied. I'm no longer able to talk to the Touch. After it timed out, I turned it back on, but Sveta no longer saw it. I pulled the USB cable and reconnected it. The Creative detector popped up and said that it saw the player. I dismissed it, without starting its GUI. But, the playerr says it is docked and nothing is running. When I started Sveta, it complained that it couldn't talk to the player.

The player refuses to power down and there is nothing on the screen to let me undock it. After connecting and disconnecting the USB cable, The damn Creative media source now will finally talk to the player. I turned off auto detection and quite MediaSource. The player undocked. But, I can't get Sveta to talk to it. Stupid player shutdown (under the 15 minute setting) and Sveta complained, naturally. I powered the player back up and changed the timeout to 30 mintues. Restarted Sveta and it still refuses to see the player.

Well, MediaSource doesn't see it either. Turned the detector back on. Damn thing still refuses to work. Rebooting. Detector now works.

After I dismissed the detector, in about a minute, the player shutdown.

The Creative software for the Touch is horriblem and that is a poilte comment.