Just the shear numbers of users taking the time to register just so as they can tell you

what a crock this is would tell a half witt he is doing something wrong.

I am no longer a windows user as i migrated to linux about a 6 months ago perhaps you

and microsoft should join forces you could call it something snappy like "Idiots R Us",

"The Long Goodbye corporation" how about you could write a book

"From World Domination To Having To Kiss Ass In 3 Decades"

And the guy who posted this open letter gosh i bet you feel really really stupid now

And if you dont your more stupid than you think

Have a heart the kids got real tallent you cant treat nice guys this way did`nt you

watch tv when you were younger the guy in the white hat always wins.

He will post his updates elsewhere under another name and screw you over.I know i would

Keep Your Friends Close And Your (percieved) Enemies Closer

Personaly i think creative soundblaster stuff is great i have been using your stuff for more than a decade and have spent thousands of pounds buying it but i shall be keeping that to myself from now on.

I own a X-FI and its been sitting in my drawer, I didn't even know about Daniel's drivers. And, now it is too late for me to get my hands on them, so it will stay a brick. I'm sure this will be the last Creative product I ever own, and not because I'm mad at them for this. Between on-board audio, competing products, lack of drivers, and their own poor business decisions, the reasons to continue buying their products are quickly disappearing.

They should have hired Daniel or offered him an exclusive NDA and license to create 3rd party drivers for them, then the IP problem would have vanished into thin air. This will never happen because they lack business sense and common sense, and with this sort of logic running their business they're heading for extinction. Also, Daniel will not accept such a deal now after this sort of treatment, so they've bitten the hand that was feeding them their own customers back. Companies that get like this become another SCO, chasing people with threats and lawsuits in desperation to hold onto their own perceived value which they lost because they forgot about the customer. I am angry that I cannot use their card, but I still love Creative products. I've been a long time fan and I've bought each generation of their card, and I still believe it is the best card (if you run XP).

I know they'll never read my comment, but I feel like posting it for the rest of you who might read it. Although, this is certainly a P.R. nightmare, I'd just like to point that Creative isn't listening to any of the whining here (nor mine). They've made their decision because they've stopped caring what you think, and no amount of pontificating about it is going to make them change their minds. They're influenced strongly by marketing and lawyers not entrepreneurs, otherwise they wouldn't be having this problem right now. Things like failing to provide proper drivers and not listening to your customers starts happening when you stop remembering the golden rule, "The customer is always right." You need to stay big and think small, its easy to forget this sitting in a comfy cubicle when you're only thing to worry about is whether John will turn his music down or wear some headphones. Or, when a "Head of Technology" sits in his Ivory Tower of an office and has long since lost touch with the goals of his company, the concerns of his customers or his own fellow employees.

I don't fault them for protecting their IP, it is a wise thing to do. And, I'm absolutely sure this is all the result of a lawyer convincing them that their trademark was in danger of being diluted. Which is true, but lawyers are like vultures and they aren't going to tell you that there are other ways to resolve the problem rather than cease/desists and litigation. They don't want you to think like a business owner with thinking caring customers. But it is too late now, you've become what you've become and there's only one direction this can go.

|

v I will miss you Creative. :'( I have very very fond memories. [My favorite being Dr. Sbaitso, ;-]

Well on the brightside this is GREAT web drama for a boring Saturday, the downsides are a bit too numerous to list.

Very cheesy Creative, very cheesy.

Count me as another longtime customer vowing never to buy a Creative product again.

And just despite Creative, I'm going to go make a "donation" to Daniel_K. I also strongly urge Daniel to not stop developing better drivers just because of some corporate schill.

First, so there's no confusion, I did read the terms on signing up for the forum, including

"You agree to not use the Service to:

1. upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;" **

As such, I'll be very careful in what I state.

In my personal opinion and based on personal experience (that should alleviate any defamatory concerns), the current status of at least some subest of (that should cover the tortious part where it might be claimed I'm completely wrong in a legal sense by not leaving some exceptions) Creative's hardware under Vista is, at best, partially supported by the software and drivers provided by Creative for their use, and by which I mean that the product, including the software, drivers and hardware only partially works to the extent that the *average, reasonable consumer* would expect in terms of functionality that's described on either the packaging materials, in-store or online advertisements, or other ways of describing the product directly or through a channel partner.

As a result, in my personal and professional life where I'm often called on to provide assistance with product selection, guidance in terms of vendors to provide a solution while purchasing products and equipment, or start-to-finish project management including purchasing decisions of components on orders ranging from single machines to hundreds of computers or devices, I find I can, based on those observations and the research I've conducted, no longer recommend Creative products to my friends, family, or business associates when tasked with providing a solution or when asked for advice. Over many years, I've been a fan of Creatives equipment, and Creative has made quite a sum of money from me or from people or businesses I've influcned over the years, and while I know talk is cheap, in the end money talks, and hopefully, a stark and true awareness of the business impact of the perceived and demonstrabale lack of support and functionality will influence Creative's management to reevaluate their priorities and the levels of suport they offer their professional and home users.

** While I took great pains to ensure I fell within the guidelines of the site in avoiding any "abusive, threatening, harassing, vulgar or obscene" statements, I'm fairly certain that, at least to the business people who have to calculate "Goodwill" at the end of each quarter and each fiscal year, this post could be considered to be "harmful" or "otherwise objectionable", but I'm anticipating that the information contained in it will compensate for any slight levels of concern an acocuntant might have for the bare existance of a single forum post, and thus, I'm well within the guidelines of the site's rules

Sean McPherson

creative at seanmcpherson dot com

I don't know where I heard the saying "There's no such thing as bad press." ... but it's wrong.

Great way to support your (former) customers, guys.

I'll be keeping my money and my consulting advice as far from Creative as I can from this point on.

> We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing.

Is he charging for the drivers (licensed good), or for random donations for his time for fixing them (service)?

This sounds like a truck maker sellng two models of truck, one with a cover for the bed in the back, one without and getting mad at other companies who make a cover for the back that's cheaper than their own. The primary good (soundcard or truck with bed) is yours until sold, at which point it belongs to the consumer to do with as they wish.

What I understand so far:

"by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages"

Why would a consumer expect to have anything less than the full "original functionality" on any system, XP, Vista etc that they choose to run it on?

Next from the grocery store, reduced price apples that you're only allowed to eat after smearing with cod liver oil.

> By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods.

This sounds a bit like buying a house and finding the previous owner left a safe with comic books inside. Even if you need a locksmith to get in, the previous owner left it behind. If you don't want functionality / comic books in the hands of your users, don't leave them behind. It's rather odd to complain about someone using part of what they bought when you left it on the card.

> By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for
which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect,
stealing our goods.

He is in effect a locksmith. In leaving them behind you in effect abandoned them.

>When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own.

The car repairman doesn't own the car he fixes, but as much as Toyota wants me to only take it to them, I'm free to take it anywhere else. (And will given the dismal performance of the local Toyota dealership's shop) Great car, horrible in-house mechanics.

> If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

So are you categorically stating that all things after-market are illegal? Many in the auto-industry might take issue to that. You have a right to choose what to ship, and the new owner has the right to decide what to do with what they buy (and assume ownership of). Even assuming you can refuse to allow anyone to run a patched version of the driver, it's only a matter of time before someone writes their own from-scratch driver which you'll have no recourse for, depending on the fickleness of angry reactions. Will people create an alternative you can't do anything about to spite you, or refrain in hopes of watching your company go under.

And further, if after-market is illegal or wrong, when are you shutting down? With the advent of on-board sound (which dates back at least to the PC speaker) you are an after-market supplier.

> If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with
certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that
only we have the right to make.

If it's in your software, you have the right to include or not include it, if it's in your hardware, the person who bought the hardware has the right once they buy it (hardware is owned, not licensed) to do as they wish with it. If I can make your soundcard somehow serve as an elevator controller, it doesn't matter what you think of it, I'm entitled to do so as long as I'm using only the hardware and am not using your drivers.

I've used your products in the past, with no regrets, but lately you have a reputation of providing inferior quality goods, and the dismal support situation doesn't bode well for this changing soon. Further wastes of energy such as complaining about those who at worst capitalize on your negligence (in enabling something you declined to remove) when you should be applying your resources to fixing the (apparently many) things broken indicates that customer service is not considered even vaguely important, let alone critical, which is odd given that your company is an after-market supplier, and with onboard sound good enough for browsing the web, people need a GOOD reason to go out and buy your product when they already have something similar installed.

As an after-market supplier, 3 things are critical for you:

1. Brand-Recognition (You have it, but it's becoming a bad recognition, and given that there are serious alternatives to you, unlike MS, you can't afford it)

2. Quality (apparently lacking, especially on Vista)

3. Good Customer Service (very late "fixed" drivers)

Given these are the 3 factors in choosing an after-market product, why should I choose you? While you may have a legitimate complaint about misuse of IP in your drivers, the fact that it's even coming up while items 2 and 3 are in such need of work suggests that they have been written off by your company, and I should look elsewhere. I'm not saying "Give the developer the blanket go ahead.", but "Work on 2 and 3, now. You're getting a bad reputation that you can't dispute having earned, at least if you care about remaining in business".

You may have already drug yourselves through more mud than you can climb out of, given that only serious gamers or audio-philes would consider your cards, and they're going to do enough reasearch to avoid you. Then again, from what I've heard, the new Vista sound-system sounds a lot like the creation of "win-modems". (Which already started for sound-cards with in-software MIDI, thank goodness for programs like TiMIDIty) Perhaps this is your end-game because you know your market is about to cease to exist. If so, however, those who have bought cards recently and who are waiting on fixed drivers would greatly appreciate a heads-up that they may as well go buy a competitor's card, that the awaited drivers are not on the way. To deliberately sell broken card / driver combos (as in doesn't have the functionality they DID pay for) and refuse to fix them after advertising them good could be cause for allegations of fraud or false advertising. A little elbow-grease in getting new drivers out now could save some legal problems in the future. (Not from me in that I haven't recently bought one of your products to be bitten by these current developments, and after what I've read today I won't but from you again.) You used to fit the "good enough" quality range, lately you don't.

Like others have noted I registered just for this post so I'll keep my 2 cents short...

Daniel_K's drivers encouraged me to purchase a couple of Creative products for new builds for customers (I personally have an Audigy 2), and I fully expected Creative to improve their driver support but I don't believe now that this will happen. I agree that taking donations might not have been proper, but perhaps Creative could have hired or purchased these drivers. I now believe a business decision prevents them from doing so.

I buy products based on quality, features, support, and value. The fact that I have recommended and used Creative products in the past and now my customers can't get proper drivers is personally embarrassing. It is clear that Creative Labs is trying to get people to purchase new hardware by refusing to release better drivers.

I am not going to scream "I'll never buy Creative or Creative-based products again." However, I will certainly take an extended break from buying Creative sound cards for a couple of years to see if support improves. I will wait for the next Microsoft OS release, see how Creative supports its current customers, and then re-evaluate if Creative products provide proper quality and value for my customers. I will apologize to my current customers who are affected by poor Creative support, and make the situation right out of my own pocket book if I have to. I will warn customers who buy pre-built systems (such as Dell) that sound card support is lacking if a Creative product is on the specifications sheet.

Me and my customers have been burned badly here and I'll be much more careful in the future.

Edit: Here via Inquirer link

OK so how come no one is bent out of joint at microsoft for creating an OS that has limited function with older hardware? Although I don't support creative for abandoning thier customers Bill Gates and the boys have some responsiability here too

Just another good reason not to switch to vista