problem with creative live 24bit USB on 5536

the system recognizes a usb sound device. when I go to "manage audio
devices" and then "speakers" and "configure" I can set it to 5.1 and the
test clearly puts sound through all five speakers correctly.

However, no program plays 5.1, only stereo (wmp, media monkey). it does not
work with other creative drivers as they only work for internal cards to
this point.

any idea how I an fix this? the speaker setup configuration shows me that it
should work. for some reason this is not translated to the software though -
all I get is stereo.

thanks

HK