Over the years (quite a number in my case), I have purchased a large number of Creative sound cards. Generally, I went for the higher spec ones (AWE64 Gold with extra sugar, etc). My last purchase was in January 2007 of an X-Fi Elite Pro. Not a particularly cheap purchase, you’ll admit, at €360.
Shortly after that, I started testing Microsoft Windows Vista, and was pretty impressed except for the lack audio driver support. I had to accept the statement from Creative that as Vista had not officially launched, they would not provide support it. Fair enough, you say. Once Vista launched though, I wanted my drivers. I still want them. Doesn’t look like I’ll get them from Creative though, and now it seems that Creative want to make sure that I don’t get them from anywhere else.
Daniel_K is a regular in the Creative support forums who has taken it upon himself to develop drivers which Creative can’t/won’t release. He has helped a lot of people to get Creative hardware working on Vista, but now Creative want him to stop.
Creative have, in a thinly veiled threat, told him to cease and desist, or else…don’t-touch-my-IP-or-I’ll-break-your-legs-cuz-you’re-stopping-us-forcing-people-to-buy-new-cards type of thing.
You can read it all here (currently with 1,714 replies…and heading for a quarter of a million views), but suffice to say, I personally will never buy nor recommend that anyone else buys, Creative hardware, as they just want you to junk whatever you have and buy another piece of their unsupported kit.
