General solutions to equation $axb^*-bx^*a^*=c$ in rings with involution

In [Q. Xu et al., The solutions to some operator equations, Linear Algebra Appl.(2008), doi:10.1016/j.laa.2008.05.034], Xu et al. provided the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution to the equation $AXB^*-BX^*A^*=C$ in the general setting of the adjointable operators between Hilbert $C^*$-modules. Based on the generalized inverses, they also obtained the general expression of the solution in the solvable case. In this paper, we generalize their work in the more general setting of ring $R$ with involution * and reobtain results for rectangular matrices and operators between Hilbert $C^*$-modules by embedding the rectangles into rings of square matrices or rings of operators acting on the same space.