Updated 5th September 2003
After over a year of having non-functional features for Aureal Vortex 2 sound cards in Windows XP, I have been contacted by an owner who has been able to patch the driver to override version detection, allowing the native Aureal control panel to function in Windows XP as it did in Windows 2000. You will now be able to have full real-time Equalizer and MIDI control support. I have tested this patch without significant problems with an Aureal Vortex 2 OEM card and a Diamond Monster Sound MX300.
If you find that you have no sound in Windows XP, then please consult this page.
NB: If the download links don't work, try please try right-clicking on them and choosing "Save Target As..."
1. Remove all previous versions of Vortex Control Panel XP
2. Download the AU8830 Applications from:
3. Execute the file
4. You may be required to install an additional patch afterwards depending on the location of Windows XP, it can be downloaded from here
5. Finally, if the system tray icon doesn't appear (the setup program should enable it) you can download a fix from here. If this fails to work then you may have to edit the path yourself (including the Windows directory)
The problem with the original Aureal Vortex Control Panel is not with the control panel app (au30cpl.exe) itself, since this is cross-platform compatible. It calls an external DLL file (au30dal.dll) which does a version check for either Windows 9x (4.x) or Windows 2000 (5.x). Unfortunately it does not recognise the minor number for Windows XP (5.1). The problem is made worse because the application compatibility wizard cannot handle DLL files, only EXE.
Hlt discovered that by finding out where the version checking routine lies within au30dal.dll and commented it out, which resulted in a fully working control panel!
If you want to patch the file yourself, the instructions are here:
file location:
%systemroot%\system32
file name:
au30dal.dll
file offset: code bytes:
00001378: 33 C0 90 90
xor eax,eax
nop
nop
This information is offered as a non-profit service to Aureal owners. If any person or company believes that copyright laws have been infringed then please contact and I will look into having the files removed.
To support, e-Mail Quantex Zone Support at
support@quantex.cjb.net
Quantex Zone 2004