Creative Labs prevent user from fixing their audio drivers

[hypn]

Basically Creative Labs just pissed off (and lost) a whole lot of their clients, by preventing someone from releasing patched drivers which enables their hardware to actually work in Vista.

Details here: ToC Gaming News

Official statement/post: Message to Daniel_K (and LOTS of responses - most people vowing never to buy a Creative Labs product again)

It's on FARK
It's on Slashdot
It's on Wired
It's on The Inquirer
It's on Gizmondo
It's on 4chan
It's on Engadget
It's on Digg
It's on Reddit

Just thought I'd mention it (tried searching for "daniel_k" and "creative labs" without finding any results, so hope it hasn't already been posted - I'm not on these forums often enough to see when something gets posted), maybe help spread the world and stuff.

It's been interesting watching the number of replies on to the official post increase - by the time you finish reading a page of comments, there's another one to read ;)

Me thinks Creative Labs just made a big mistake :|

[SC_Modder]

If I was the owner of that company, and I had vista drivers in development and this random guy makes his own and starts begging for money for it, I would of done the exact same thing.

[punture]

If I was the owner of that company, and I had vista drivers in development and this random guy makes his own and starts begging for money for it, I would of done the exact same thing.

Orrrrr you can just make that guy's driver the official driver....
orrrr just copy his driver and say its Creative's.

[SC_Modder]

Orrrrr you can just make that guy's driver the official driver....
orrrr just copy his driver and say its Creative's.

And say, "Sorry developers, no paycheck for you, this guy beat you to it"?

Not to mention, what if there's a bug or a flaw? The company would have to sit and wait for one dude who isn't even an employee of the company and may not even care anymore to fix it.

[nova587]

They didn't get off of their ass's and make drivers for vista when they could have easily, why you ask? To try to push their more expensive hardware on vista users. They also restored all of his threads on those drivers and made them available again after the consumer backlash.

[DSG]

I have always hated Creative and their (appearingly deliberate) limited drivers that also had plenty of bugs that were never fixed because they would pretty much drop all support once they moved on to their latest model. Some of their 'new cards' were even very little different from the previous other than 'better and fixed' drivers. They also have IMO been deliberately not releasing vista drivers for their older cards (and probably didn't have any plans to).

Creative is a despicable company and its about time people realized that and they lost their hold on the consumer/gaming audio card arena.

I recommend all people use the kX drivers or his drivers if you want to see the full power of your card in vista or xp.

Edit:
kX build 3540 (2k/XP/Vista): 3540 released - DriverHeaven.net
DL: RapidShare: 1-Click Webhosting
[For SBLive, EMU APS, Audigy, Audigy2 and SB 512 cards]

Daniel_K drivers (XP?/Vista):
Dolby Digital Live for Creative X-Fi: MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service
Creative Alchemy for Audigy Cards 1.00.8 Universal : MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

[nova587]

If I was the owner of that company, and I had vista drivers in development and this random guy makes his own and starts begging for money for it, I would of done the exact same thing.

They're not working on Vista drivers, they intentionally sandbagged them.

To try to push their more expensive hardware on vista users.

[SC_Modder]

Hmm. Well if that was my plan I would of still done the same obviously. So I guess my point still stands. :P

But seriously, that is pretty f*cked up. Makes me wonder if my onboard ethernet drivers for my P5B-SE are intentionally bad as well. :-/

[nova587]

Hmm. Well if that was my plan I would of still done the same obviously. So I guess my point still stands. :P

But seriously, that is pretty f*cked up. Makes me wonder if my onboard ethernet drivers for my P5B-SE are intentionally bad as well. :-/

They said ON THE BOX of some of their sound cards that it WILL have future support for Vista.

When they failed to deliver, that only pissed off a handful of people.

Then came along a hero named "Daniel_K" who made working drivers for Vista. Creative now removed those drivers, because now their whole idea of forcing more expensive hardware on Vista users was now pointless.

So creative removed all of the drivers on their forums of links to download those drivers.

Now the consumer backlash is starting to kick in, Creative's stocks are plummeting, Newegg has put BIG rebates on all Creative sounds cards, supposedly because they won't sell them anymore.

Their stocks won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

Say bye to Creative, i wouldn't be surprised if they went out of business.

[Ganondorf]

Don't you say that's a little extreme? Sure, companies make small mistakes that put them well under, it happens all the time.

However, creative is a large company and if they play it smart (they already have restored the threads) they'll be fine. Like you said, they pissed off a handful, not their entire userbase.

[darkxfool]

They said ON THE BOX of some of their sound cards that it WILL have future support for Vista.

When they failed to deliver, that only pissed off a handful of people.

Then came along a hero named "Daniel_K" who made working drivers for Vista. Creative now removed those drivers, because now their whole idea of forcing more expensive hardware on Vista users was now pointless.

So creative removed all of the drivers on their forums of links to download those drivers.

Now the consumer backlash is starting to kick in, Creative's stocks are plummeting, Newegg has put BIG rebates on all Creative sounds cards, supposedly because they won't sell them anymore.

Their stocks won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

Say bye to Creative, i wouldn't be surprised if they went out of business.

Proof: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/...0News/1235910/
Creative, F*ck you. The only thing that YOU are CREATIVE at is at finding ways to exploit YOUR customers, that help YOU stay UP and RUNNING, just to squeeze MORE money out of us.

[braind damage]

Plus, their entire customer base is probably only 50% experienced computer users. There are plenty of dumb people who will, without any explanation as to why, will say oh well, this card doesn't work, I'll get a new one.

[FlamingAsterix]

As ****ty as their soundcards my have become, I still prefer my Zen to an iPod.

[DSG]

Thats because iPods are garbage. Most the population has just drank Apple's koolaid. They may look nice but under the surface the hardware isn't worth nearly what you are paying for.

Besides the point, I have heard a lot of complaints about Zens when i was shopping for a new mp3 player a year or so ago.

50% experienced computer users

Even a 40% loss in sales is extremly harmful to a company and you also have to consider that like me, many people in IT positions will be bashing Creative and recommending other cards. Not to mention the people who own their own companies and stores that stock creative products will be getting rid of their stock and ceasing to sell their products. Creative is at the very least in for a very bumpy ride.

[nova587]

Even 40% would be alot, considering they were losing money BEFORE this happened.

[K? Pŕo?ćtiόnŹ]

Lol, who needs a sound card?