Creative Labs, makers of sound cards that still don’t work properly with Windows Vista, doesn’t want fixed versions of its broken drivers on the net. In a message to “Daniel_K,” who repaired their broken software, Creative Labs’ Phil O’Shaughnessy claims that by restoring functionality to Vista drivers that are offered in Windows XP versions, he is a thief. “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,” writes O’Shaughnessy at Creative’s forums. Granted, Daniel_K is soliciting donations. Furthermore, the gear’s end-user license agreement specifies, as is usual, that you can’t tamper with its software. But why would a company set out to prevent people from helping one another fix problems in hardware it’s already sold them?
The answer is the sad one you’ve probably learned to expect: O’Shaughnessy admits that Creative Labs intentionally crippled its Vista drivers as a business strategy. “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.”
Baffling, yes, but also its prerogative. You can easily find the fixed drivers.
Intentionally crippling its drivers is a business strategy? Maybe they just didn’t want to look inept. Its not like Microsoft gave them plenty of time to patch their software for use in Vista, right?
Thanks to Andrew Shroyer
It was a business strategy. By intentionally crippling some of their sound cards in Vista, Vista users are forced to upgrade and buy new sound cards.
That’s exactly what Creative said:
Creative is admitting that it never “intended” those cards to run on Vista. Furthermore, they are admitting that they intended users to buy new ones.
The amazing thing to me is that they saw no down side to making both of those admissions. None whatsoever. Arrogance on their part? Or apathy on our part?
Companies can play these games aimed at forcing people to buy unnecessary new hardware, but I don’t think they can legally prevent someone from reverse-engineering a new driver that does what people want.
This isn’t new with Creative.
I ran into my perfectly good hardware NOT running on newer operating systems. I ran into this with a sound card and with their DVD Player/Card Combo.
My only message to Creative is, I vote with my money. I have never purchased a Creative product since then and never will.
This should really bring back the whole debate of whether software should be patentable.
Short answer: it shouldn’t!
Creative will see all the bad press and hire this guy… if they are even close to being wise.
I wonder, aloud, whether this violates consumer protection laws in the EU? Deliberately crippling a product (or limiting product support) in an effort to market other, more expensive hardware. No wonder, Apple’s market share is on the up.
Remember the Intel SX chip that was a crippled DX chip? Same brain dead marketing types…
Reading this reminded me about how difficult it is to find old Creative drivers (they want you to pay $ to get them). So, I’m adding Creative Labs to my list of companies from which I will never buy.
Why build a better mouse trap when you’re sure that you can force your customers to buy your overkill, more expensive rat traps? Oops, Creative forgot about that pesky thing called competition.
“If you don’t serve your customers, someone else will.”
This is also another example of how technology companies think that they are somehow special under the law. If I buy a car and figure out how to make it run better, I have the right to distribute that knowledge — even if it might mean that people would put off their new car purchase another year. Not so with sound cards, it seems.
HAH!!! I say HAH!!!
Why didn’t microsoft patch XP instead of requiring Vista?
Who is “baffled” by this?
On board sound chips are getting better and better. We don’t need what Creative makes anymore.
I’m with OhForTheLoveOf.
On my last upgrade I didn’t bother trying to bring my Creative card over to my new motherboard because the onboard version was adequate. Apparently it wouldn’t have worked on Vista anyway. I’ll never buy another product from them again.
“Creative purposefully modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected and also purposefully introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running.”
See Daniel_K’s reply at http://tinyurl.com/32zr94.
Mental note: “Don’t buy Creative.” Another lost customer.
To me, the big issue is not Creative using software to limit the functionality in an effort to up-sell nor is it that they came down like a ton of bricks on someone doing them a favor. The core issue is the incompetent security by which they hid these features. It is the poster child for security by obscurity with the adding topping of the DMCA to protect your obscurity. If you want to disable features, do it at the hardware level.
I would bet that the driver developers told management that disabling features via software was no better than tell people not to use a feature without paying them.
I think this is actually a VISTA DRM issue and not one of Creative just trying to boost sales of their higher end cards. Unlike XP, VISTA has a PUMA Protected Audio pathways and security policies to prevent premium content from playing out over analog or High quality digital outputs without the consent of the copyright holder. Another reason to boycot Vista. Read about the draconian lock down of the audio subsystem here in Microsofts white paper on the subject.:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EAF2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc
I think this is actually a VISTA DRM issue and not one of Creative just trying to boost sales of their higher end cards. Unlike XP, VISTA has a PUMA Protected Audio pathways and security policies to prevent premium content from playing out over analog or High quality digital outputs without the consent of the copyright holder. Another reason to boycott Vista. Read about the draconian lock down of the audio subsystem here in Microsoft’s white paper on the subject.:
http://tinyurl.com/9ksv4
Turns out I’m in process of buying a new sound card. Guess what? It won’t be manufactured by Creative Labs. Along with others, it’s a pleasure to announce that Creative Labs has made it onto my do not buy list.
Engineered Obsolescence
It’s not much different than car companies that shelve technologies that could be used to build cars that would last a lifetime (crashes excepted) so they can sell new ones every … however long they last.
Tried to think of a manufactured commodity that doesn’t (perhaps in some cases, with only the best of intentions) have some sort of EO built in.
Books
Fountain pens
Anyone else ?
Creative = Satan ? Compared to most, probably not.
Haven’t used any of their stuff in a long time. Probably won’t either as, mentioned by others, the on-board stuff suits my needs.
If anything should be considered theft, it’s disabling features that were included at the time hardware was sold. Well I’ll never buy Creative again if removing features in hardware I paid for is there business strategy.