I hadn't used my Creative Zen Touch MP3 player for a while. It is a lovely machine but it had been gathering dust while I neglected music. Last week my partner decided that she wanted to use it while on holiday. When she attempted to add some new music to it she found that it would not talk to our PC.
Creative Zen Touch 2
I had changed to Vista since the last time I synched with the Zen, so it was assumed that this was the problem. After some research it appeared that the firmware would have to be upgraded on the player before it would talk to Vista. Unfortunately the firmware would have to be upgraded from a PC that could talk to the player.Missing a driver for my two Creative Zen Touch mp3 players model no: H00014, It cannot be right that Creative does not provide drivers for Windows 7. On the net, I can see that many others have the same problem so liver please a new driver or lose future customers. From Creative: Dear Kai, Thank you for getting back to us. Creative Zen Touch free download - Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16/32/AWE Drivers, Creative WebCam Pro eX Drivers, Don't Touch My Computer Episode 2, and many more programs. Creative Zen Touch MP3 Player Firmware 1.01.03 Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP was collected from Creative official site for Creative MP3/MP4 Player. In order to ensure the right driver download, Official driver links from Creative.
I have an XP laptop that I could use for this so it shouldn't be a problem. Well that's the theory anyway. Unfortunately as it turns out the problem is not Vista, it is Media Player 11. Even though my XP laptop would talk to the Zen, because I had upgraded to Media Player 11 the firmware upgrade failed.
This left me with an MP3 player that stuck in Recovery Mode. I tried all the options on the player but basically it had no firmware anymore and was a complete loss. There is an option in recovery mode that allows you to delete the current firmware and reload it from a PC. That sounds fine but the firmware upgrade that I got from the Creative website would no longer recognise that the player existed. It seems that once the firmware upgrade application had deleted the current firmware and then rebooted the Zen, a PC with Media Player 11 would not be able to recognise the player so the new firmware could be applied.
I did some more research and found a lot of conflicting information. What worked for me though was rolling back Media Player 11 to Media Player 10, then the firmware upgrade application could recognise the player and install the new firmware.
I read in a few places that the roll-back to Media Player 10 did not fix this problem, however rolling-back to version 10 is not straight forward so these people probably did not do it correctly. I never run with System Restore turned on, but I suppose if you do then you might be able to roll-back to version 10 using that method, although who knows what else you would lose. These are the steps I followed:
- Unplug the MP3 player from the PC.
- Open Control Panel.
- Start Add or Remove Programs.
- Find Windows Media Player 11, and then remove it.
- Allow the roll-back routine to finish and then reboot.
- Start Add or Remove Programs again.
- Find Windows Media Format 11 Runtime, and then remove it.
- Reboot again.
- Start Add or Remove Programs again.
- Find Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Feature Pack 1.5, and then remove it.
- In Add or Remove Programs tick the box at the top labelled Show Updates.
- Look through all of the updates that appear and remove any that refer to Media Player 11. I think I found about 3 updates.
- Reboot
- Run the Firmware upgrade application available from the Creative website support section.
- Reinstall Media Player 11 - because it is pretty cool.
- Tell your partner that you have fixed it and receive smiles and/or hugs.
This advice is provided, as is, follow it if you want I take no responsibility. Creative would probably tell you to return the player to them. Even if it is not in warranty I'm sure that they would fix a firmware issue.
Creative Zen Touch Software Download Windows 7
Here are the software you may need :
| Name | Description | Date | Size | Download |
| Creative Media Source 2.02.06 FR(for Win2000/XP) | Software which allows you to listen your music from your computer (like winamp or Windows Media Player) and from your Zen Touch (unlike winamp or WMP) | 22 Dec 2004 | 8 832 Ko | Download it |
| Creative Media Source FR 3.30.21 | Last version of the Creative Media Source | 22 Aug 2005 | 53 460 Ko | Download it |
| Plugin CD-Burner 3.10.18 | Plug-in for Creative MediaSource which allows you to burn Audio and mp3 CD, and to print jackets | 22 Aug 2005 | 11 417 ko | Download it |
| Driver Zen et Jukebox US 1.30.03(for Win98 SE/2000/XP/x64) | Driver in order to detect the Zen Touch on the computer (works too for : Creative Zen,Creative Zen Micro, Creative Zen Touch, Creative NOMAD® Jukebox ZenXtra and Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX) | 24 Jun 2005 | 1 140 Ko | Download it |
| Driver Jukebox 1.30.03 FR | Plug-in for Creative Media Source if this software has already been installed for another Creative player, in order to detect the Zen Touch (or a Jukebox Player) | 22 Dec 2004 | 1 164 Ko | Download it |
| Nomad Explorer 3.01.10 (forWindows) | Once Nomad Explorer installed, you can use your Zen Touch as an external hard drive, so as a normal Windows folder | 22 Sep 2004 | 11 492 Ko | Download it |
| Firmware 1.01.03e FR | The last firmware for having your Zen Touch updated | 23 Dec 2004 | 968 Ko | Download it |
I don't know if these software are freely downlodable, so do not download themif you don't have any Zen Touch (or other Creative Player).
In any case, these software are not very useful without Creative Player...