Creative Labs in the last few weeks has made it loud and clear that users who tinker with their drivers risk being shouted down.

"As far as Creative is concerned, it's not for you the user to decide how badly your Sound Blaster card will or will not function," Ed Foster reports in this Gripe Line post.

At issue is why Creative had crippled its soundcards' functionality under Windows Vista -- as well as why it withheld features that were present and functional under XP.

Customers were outraged when Creative lashed out a user who posted "modified drivers on Creative's forums, much to the delight of other Sound Blaster customers who had thought Vista drivers were just buggy."

Part of the problem is that Creative had advertised it as being Vista-compatible and then failed to deliver on that promise, seemingly intentionally so it could charge extra for access to those features in the future.

"Does any company really have the right to prevent a customer from modifying a product to make it work as advertised, or prevent them from telling others how to do so?" Foster asks.

Talkback via the comments function below or at the link above.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 11, 2008 10:47 AM