<sarcasm>

Dear Mr. O'Shaughnessy,

we are aware that your company has been assisting owners of ears for some time now, by providing music to them.

In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any music provided to them is subject to the licenses provided by the RIAA. Where we do have a problem is when music and IP owned by the RIAA, are made audible for users for which they are not intended.

Now we are a reasonable company and have to admit that we like your idea of "disabling" certain ...shall we say.. "sounds". Let's get in touch, maybe we can work something out.

Oh, and Phil, since this situation doesn't look too good at the moment here's a hint on how to protect YOURSELF from any fallout this will certainly have: Are you SURE you REMEMBER that you instructed DALE_CL to post an INTERNAL MEMO on the PUBLIC forums *hint* *hint*

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman and CEO
Recording Industry Association of America

</sarcsm>

One of the main reasons I've always turned to these forums for help is because of intelligent people who can give me advice and assist me when it comes to making my purchased Creative Labs products to work.

And Creative Labs kills it by saying that they have no problem with user assisting another, but if that user assists another with their own tools, that is somehow wrong by tweaking what is broken and does not work. For fracks sake, people want their hardware to work and Creative Labs screwes them over. If Creative is willing to sell me a broken product and banish anyone helping me to make it work, then that policy is just wrong. Wrong.

I'll be turning to other companies for my audio solutions in the future, thank you.

Creative - with on-board audio growing better & better by the year, and by your terrible, terrible on-going customer support, and prices that are way too costly for consumers on a budget (except for your older cards like Audigy, Leve, etc (all under $40), which *gasp*, do not work properly with Vista, the OS most people are upgrading to), you are sealing your own demise in the consumer market. I love my Audigy 2 Platinum card and will be using it until it quits working. I paid over $100 for it when I first purchased it several years ago - you should, at the very least, Creative, allow people to distribute drivers that allow it to work properly, since you're too low on resources to publish working drivers yourselves.

Perhaps the resource you lack more of than anything else is ethics.

Funny this comes up as I just sold my X-Fi 2 weeks ago on eBay and was going to sell my Zen but it died after only 1 year of use. I remember coming on these boards when Vista first came out and the X-Fi drivers were all but functional. Just ordered me an Asus card to replace the X-Fi.

So count me as another Former Disgruntled Creative Customer, who has suggested to all his friends and family that knows anything about computers, to NEVER purchase a Creative product. The only reason I ever had any decent sound from my X-Fi on Vista was because of Daniel_K.

So thank you Daniel_K for all the time and work you put into making everyone else's computer run better and for doing the job of Creative's Dev team

Hello Creative. I have been a customer of yours for a few years, and I have actually just recently purchased a 2.1 audio system from you guys. I have enjoyed the system, and the sound is good.

However, after hearing how you guys have treated Daniel_K, because he did something that you were unable to do. You have lost my confindence in your ability to make your customers happy. Creative, you have made a big mistake and have declared war on your customers, whats left of them that is. I hope you guys are happy. I will be sure to send this thread to all of my friends and tell them to stop buying Creative software and hardware.

Good job, maybe next year you can alienate more of your customers!

I will continue to use my audio system because it works, but I will not buy anymore creative products.

Sincerly,

-Another ex-customer.

Something doesn't feel right here -- since when PR vice president role is to write and send out legal threats?

Besides, has anyone else realized that Dale-CL did everyone a favor by making this public?

If you are angry be angry at the right people - the top-level management at Creative.

Registered just now to say something...

I have only ever purchased Creative cards.

One of the main reasons I went from Vista back to XP was because of HORRIBLE sound drivers from Creative for my X-Fi.

How can you have the BEST product Creative makes and still feel jipped?

If I had only known about Daniel_K's fixes...

Thanks a ton Creative, for stopping someone who doesn't even work for you from making your products better. I'm not so sure I'll care anymore, as there are apparently superior products (and companies) out there.