Creative X-Fi Issues

Hi All, I'm really hoping for some help.

I've had a creative X-Fi Fatal1ty card for a couple of years that came with a Mesh pc I bought.

So I buy all the kit for a new pc and think I can just move the card across. I install Vista 64, install service pack 1 and all is peachy apart form my Razer mouse that needs a new driver, but then is fine.

I install a load of old games and they work fine. Some fine tuning for allowing games to run as admin, but considering my new pc is so much faster, and the greater security (i've been told, and call me sad but i believe it) I'm thinking its worth it.

Wow I think, this vista malaky's great!

Pop in my creative soundcard download the drivers and think here we go.

So I install Half life 2. A fairly old game. And it all starts going wrong. I load up the first level and I suddenly only have 2.0 sound.

open up the console and notice all kinda errors (on screen node graph out of date, A.I.disabled, and a load more in the console when i look).

Are they caused by Vista or Creative? I dunno, i didn't load half life prior to installing the card so it could be either to be fair.

So I read up more to try to work it out and I come across a funny thing. If in Creatives download manger pages you tell it you have a creative Fatal1ty soundcard,and you have a vista 64bit operating system then there are no downloads.

But if you put in Vista 32 bit then you get offered the Alchamey drivers. Which state that they are for 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista.

So I've downloaded Alchemy and there are no instructions. By trawling the Creative forums a guy tells me some settings and how the damn thing works and so I use those and add HL2 to the alchemy 'transmuted' list

But it doesn't work. Now I can't even get Steam to start. It says updating and gives a .dll error when it gets to 99%.

So i uninstalled steam and reinstalled it and half life 2. Still doesn't work.

uninstall steam, all the creative drivers and software and remove the card, reinstall steam and HL2 and it works fine.

Install card and drivers again and back to the same error.

Has anyone got any advice on how to get this card to work in Vista 64?