Professional whining, software updates, and Windows Vista

Moving into a new computer with new hardware, operating system, and new software can present the same challenges as moving into a new home. You have to line up all the people that provide the services that you use i.e. plumbing, electrical vs. software glitches. This all gets around to my point about griping in general when things don’t work.

A recent example of griping: When I built my custom desktop with Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit I had installed a fancy sound-card manufactured by Creative Labs. The sound card had set me back $200. It had a fancy front interface where I could plug in my electric acoustic guitar and the sound card included a lot of software. Unfortunately Creative Labs had failed to inform the the card’s drivers would not work with Windows Vista Ultimate 64.

Now the real drama begins as I enter the world of being a professional whiner seeking the latest drivers, bug fixes, and software updates that will make this shiny hunk of integrated transistors play music to my ears through the new Bose desktop speakers. The Creative Labs site was pretty well laid out considering the plethora of devices that Creative manufactures other than their sound cards. I finally navigated to drivers update page and downloaded the ‘latest’ available drivers for my particular card which were dated sometime in May 2007. At this time it was around September 2007. There were some detailed instructions for downloading the driver patch which I dutifully followed. I download and followed the instructions, the firewall squawked. I watched and waited as I was bombarded with multiple windows, buttons, progress bars, and a lethargic Microsoft hourglass. After about 45 minutes of this digital psychiatric slide-show I was instructed to reboot. I drew a breath and then Microsoft had one more alert and a button to press. The hard drive purred, the screen went blank, and then the computer powered down.

Microsoft Windows then came back to life. I eagerly awaited for my speakers to play the dramatic default Microsoft sound indicating that everything was okay and I was successful with my update. The speakers momentarily screeched and then there was silence. I tried all of this once again. Before I knew it was 2 o’clock in the morning. Oh well another day and another try, but I was incensed that $200 sound card did nothing but screech and then whimper. I went to bed fuming wanting to perform some excruciating torture the CEO of Creative Labs.
The next day I did some research and found out that there were many other people like myself that wanted to choke the @*## out of Creative Labs CEO and demand a refund. Then I found about the forums on Creative Labs web site. I immediately signed up and entered a world of like minded professional whiners intent on getting there money’s worth. I posted in this forum for the next 3 to 4 months. I read other posts where people had found there beta releases posted on other sites that were not endorsed by Creative Labs and even found cases where people with a more technical bent had even written their own drivers. There were people posting petitions to be signed to never do business again with Creative Labs. This forum was a wild place with people outraged with the high priced hardware they had been stuck with due Creative Labs failing to create drivers for all the devices that wouldn’t jive with Windows Vista.

After posting several times to the forum and literally shaking my fist with the rest of the forum participants Creative Labs finally posted the up-to-date drivers for my sound card that would work with Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit. I was relieved to say the least and felt I had gotten my due process and justice.

This entry was posted on January 24, 2008 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Windows Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.