Steeliedave
frankly i would look at an alternative better sound device solution
that has excellent w7 drivers.
zzounds.com has a nice list of sound devices from cheap thru pricey.
it often comes down to how well a particular sound device works re drivers.
thus sometimes you have to test a few sound devices to find one that works
well in your particular pc.
i had many probs with creative years back , so i stayed away from em after that.
generally what i recommend for a basic dawpc is 2 gigs ram. dual core.
two 7200 rpm drives. one for win OS and one for recording to.
the recording hard drive i recommend as 7200 rpm with 32 mb cache.
such good drives are very cheap these days at 70 buks.
read my tips sometime for further tips in the tips n triks section of these forums..
to save me lots of retyping.
all the best.

retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.