I have a server with windows server 2003 installed.

I add a generic sound card (under $50) to my server and it crashed my server right after I install the driver. I used the windows 2000 driver, should I try the windows xp version?

I can't find any sound card that says it support the windows server 2003. I know someone must run into my problem. Can you tell me what everybody is using for their soundcard with windows server 2003.

Thanks a bunch.

You should probably use the driver included in 2003. Unless its very old, there should be one. Failing that, try the XP one. In general XP and 2003 drivers are interchangable, but I'm sure there are exceptions.

FWIW, I've not had issues using XP drivers on my 2003 machines.

Generally, servers are used to act as servers, not as workstations/desktops. That's why they usually come with no soundcard. You might try going to "add hardware", and check the list of the ones it knows.
I doubt any card will advertize it supports 2003 server, for what i've said above.

Exactly, I don't know many reasons for putting a soundcard in a server. The only people I know who do so are warez monkeys who run it as their desktop because it's l33t and then wonder why it's incompatible.

Out of interest, a question for the OP - what are you trying to do with this?

Well, I Am Not the OP but Google led me here via a search for Win2003 sound card support. I am also not a l33t warez monkey; I am a geek mom who realized the family LAN has just outgrown the peer to peer model. Just barely, so I am setting up Win2003 but not about to place a huge demand on it. Since I am going to be stuck in the basement with it, and since everyone has gone wireless and all the other computers are elsewhere in the house, I wondered if things might have evolved such that I could listen to internet radio on the server. I'm a veteran of silent server rooms, never have had a sound card in a server, understand the logic, don't have a sound card in there - just wondering if perhaps there now was a supported option.

Just trying to make the point that asking the question does not necessarily imply evil or ignorance Don't forget servers are popping up out of the workplace, too.

Try the WinXP driver. They generally work.

I never meant to say that everyone using it in that matter was a warez monkey. But most of them are to be fair

Just as a matter of interest, what roles does your server perform? I'm surprised anyone would pay the money for the OS and client access licenses for home apps (I don't, my home server uses Linux)

sean

I think every soundcard that supports XP (for 32bit server) or XPx64 (64-bit) should work fine with Win2003....
I'm happy with my Creative Audigy... Got it as OEM for only 25EUR...

don't you have to enable the sound service in Server? I thought it was disable by default?

Well I don't want to go too far off topic but I can't seem to come up with a short answer to this question. I decided that, rude as it might be for a newbie to carry on OT, it would be ruder not to answer you, so apologies for the length.

I guess I need to say in fairness that this is not your average home network. I also have my own business and my office is at home. It's an IT business, and part of the business is setting up home, SOHO and SMB networks. I have licenses that allow me to use MS products for the running of my own business, for evaluation, and for developing solutions for clients. That makes it very affordable for me to explore the value of moving to client-server, for our own situation and for clients. Otherwise? I would either be sticking to peer-to-peer or looking at open source.

So there's all that, and a lot of resource sharing that was starting to look like the 21st century version of sneaker-net. Except instead of floppies, it's external HDs and USB flash drives and printers. What with us all being wireless now, and laptops coming and going, and windows not always being so co-operative about logging from peer into peer, it seems time to try a different approach. The ability to better manage resources should allow us to integrate our business needs (dh is a geek too, sometimes working from home) with the family's and have enough security and stability to satisfy bosses and clients.

As far as sound goes, I can think of several benefits to it in a server environment. Audio alerts, for one huge one. I mean, yeah! The ability to use voice-activated software, for another. And yeah it would be nice to listen to music.

This is definitely a growing need Out There. I would argue that we are only a *little* ahead of the curve. And I remind myself that I saw lots of eyebrows raised back in 1999-2000 when I was advocating and installing NAT routers/firewalls. Hee. I see home networks that need to accommodate all sorts of demands related to work and school (security, backup) that are only going to get more complicated. You know, like when the bird flu hits North America and nobody is allowed to go downtown and all the big corps decentralize to a gazillion home offices and PAY for all those server licenses, and the schools do remote learning and bittorrent saves civilization as we know it.

Thanks for asking and I hope you don't regret it.

In case anyone else has the same problem, Bubka was correct. My Creative Audigy card was reporting installed, but would not pass all the tests or play a CD. After seeing his answer, I looked in the "Services" listing. Sure enough, "Windows Audio" is disabled by default. I started it up and everything works. BTW, Creative's help desk said Win 2003 is not supported and there was nothing I could do... thanks Bubka & hydrogenaudio.com.

(Sorry for ressurecting a dead thread, but...)

I got an E-mail from arthur tordilla, who wanted to reply to this post, but he wasn't registered (Man.. registering is pretty easy. Next time better do it).

Here is his addenum to the post: