I used the "Audigy_SupportPack_7_0.exe" to install the driver, and selected the Full option. When I go to shutdown or Restart the system will hang for over a minute, waiting for something to close. During this time I can't open Task Manager or Device Manager etc.

After initial installation of the driver when it asks to restart, sound is working at that moment and it logs off immediately like it should. This is on a clean install of XP SP3 with only my GTX 980 drivers (355.98) installed. I'm wondering if anyone has a similar setup with a GTX (that has audio output, maybe conflicting?) + an Audigy 2 ZS has experienced this problem. This is a SB0350 and not an OEM card. I had absolutely no issues like this with the Audigy 2 ZS in Windows 98SE, I expected issues on that OS, not XP 🤣

UPDATE: I did a fresh install of XP SP3, installed the Audigy driver pack first and missed the part where it says to use the minimum option for gaming. So went with that, installed the Nvidia 355.98 drivers (including the audio), and no more hanging ! Not sure why it would hang with the Full feature set but all fine, save some space and improves stability (in my case). And then I noticed on Daniel K's blog that 7.0 isn't even the last release, its actually 8.1, time to start over.