Metazolid's post #24 fixed it for me. Thanks Bud! :cool:
Well.. it came back after I changed Account control to wide open. (off)
So.. now I've changed syswow's hsmanager to win 8 compatibility and admin mode and Icue to win 8 compatibility and admin mode. Both accessed from taskmanager startup.
I haven't had to change my Xonar driver though.
So far.... so good.