Sound Blaster E-Series Control Panel won't load.

[FM 3370]

I have a Sound Blaster E1 USB DAC on my Windows 8.1 system and I'm unable to load the Sound Blaster control panel. Sound works fine, no yellow (!) in device manager. I've un-installed and re-installed the drivers and software, tried to delete entries from the registry pertaining to Creative and still won't load. I want to be able to disable the extra Creative settings like the Crystalizer..etc, yet I get the following error message. I have the same device on my Windows 7 system and it has no problem loading. Any ideas?

 

[radgoos]

Is it selected as the default audio device in windows control panel?

 

[FM 3370]

Is it selected as the default audio device in windows control panel?

Yes it is:

Also I tried to update the driver manually and I get this error message:

I noticed the Windows 8.1 system is using Microsoft drivers when views in Device Manager while my Windows 7 system is using Creative drivers. Somehow I need to force Windows 8.1 to use Creative drivers but it's not happening when I try to install.

Edit, I tried copying drivers over from my WIndows 7 machine, also re-installed the driver/software pack in Windows 7 compatibility mode. Still no luck.