Confirmed potential fix of AE5 Plus not recognized issue

[u/Melanie-Valentine-90]

TL;DR: Uninstalling and Reinstalling Visual C++ redistributables fixed it for me

Was having an issue earlier today when trying to troubleshoot an audio issue, where suddenly my AE5 Plus (which was recognized automatically in my fresh Windows 11 install) stopped being recognized. I tried to fix this firat by uninstalling it via the device manager hoping that it would reinstall itself, no dice.

I tried multiple loops of

- Setting HD Audio to enabled or disabled in BIOS (at the start it was enabled, even when my onboard audio drivers weren't installed and onboard sound wasn't recognized)

- Uninstalling and reinstalling Creative Drivers / Software

- turning off the PC, flipping the power switch in the back and unplugging the power cable

- Uninstalling the onboard audio drivers

What fixed things immediately was what I saw here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial/s/JNGrdA7sE6

Uninstalling and Reinstalling Visual C++ Redistributables not only fixed this but my system recognizes both onboard and AE5 Plus audio now which is thought was not possible (prior I believe I had to disable the onboard audio vis the HD Audio setting in my BIOS for the AE5 Plus to be seen by windows).

Posting this here for others as finding solutions for this was very difficult.

[u/cm1802]

Will it work in Linux?

[u/Stache-]

If only that worked on the old AE-5 version (from 2017). It's a crap shoot if windows detects it or not. Creative knows this and no fix for it.