Technical Support Note
 

Product(s) involve	:	SBPro/SB16

Third party product(s)	:	NA

 

Subject

Error "Unable to play sound - the Sound Blaster is in use by another application" 
when trying to play MIDI files/games in Windows DOS shell.

Description

The following procedures will produce the above mentioned error message:

a.	Load Windows 3.1 in enchanced mode.
b.	Double click "MS DOS" prompt to shell to DOS.
c.	Change to the respective Sound Blasters' directory (eg. C:\SBPRO for 
	Sound Blaster Pro, C:\SB16 for SB16).
d.	Load SBMIDI.EXE.
e.	You will get the above mentioned error message.

The reason is the respective Sound Blaster/Voyetra's Super SAPI Driver does 
not support device virtualization in enhanced mode.  Running games that 
utilize FM music of Sound Blaster cards in Windows DOS Shell will also 
produce this error message.

Solution/Action

This problem can be solved by updating the current SBP2FM.DRV (for SBP) or 
SB16FM.DRV (for SB16) to the latest updated driver (SBP2FM.DRV dated 
04/16/93 or later and SB16FM.DRV dated 03/24/93 or later) respectively.

The following files which contain the necessary update drivers are available in 
Creative Technology's BBS:

VSBP2DRV.ZIP	(for SBP2)
VSB16DRV.ZIP	(for SB16)

These two files contains the updated drivers for the respective Sound Blaster 
cards.  Distributors are advised to download the files and update for users who 
encountered such problem.