Warning: This rant contains almost no profanity, only a sense of despair and resignation.
I am now the owner of a useless hunk of plastic AKA a perfectly fine Microsoft Strategic Commander. Recently I started playing Warcraft III (zug zug) so I decided to haul out my MS Strategic Commander from storage. Whoops, I can’t find the installation CD! I’ve moved since the last time I used it, and it was not in my CD binder.
“Not a problem! I’ll just look on MS’s web site and download the drivers…” An hour and a half later (and much googling) I must admit defeat… the installation package is not available for download from Microsoft or anywhere else I can find.
This in itself is not an really unusual. I have plenty of hardware that comes with extra software that is not available on the web, but the main difference is you can always download the core software needed to actually use the hardware.
If I really wanted to be a bastard I could go to a computer shop and buy another controller, dupe the CD and return the controller for a full refund. I won’t do that as it only hurts the retailer.
I guess my options are:
Call Microsoft customer service and pay (I assume) a high shipping fee to get a replacement CD sent to me.
Try to get an email address for a non-peon within Microsoft and try to get a CD comp’ed. (feel free to email me an address :))
Post on the online BB at work and see if someone can lend me the CD.
Why oh why can’t MS make this software available? It’s just a re-mapping program, very simular to all the other joystick software available on their website. The funny part is that XP automatically installs the drivers for this controller, but you still can’t use it unless you have the software component.
I don’t need anything yet from that site, but I am bookmarking it for the eventuality.
I know you were not directing your desire for worship to me, but may I just pay lip service to your deityness? I am agnostic, and it would be annoying to change my philosophy over drivers I may not ever need.
How do you like that contraption, Coward? I picked one up on a whim (they were selling them for $5 CDN) but I have since forgotten about it and hence never used it.
It has it’s time and place I suppose. I havn’t used it much at all, but as a keyboard replacement controller it seems to work just fine. For RTS games it does work pretty well and is worth setting up.
I got the idea last night to see how it works on a FPS like Soldier of Fortune II. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Lord help me, I just bookmarked that link as well. It’ll seem out of place on my Mac OS X-only browser Chimera, but I just got me a new Pee Cee, so I have to worry about such things again…
(Glad you found the driver, Coward! And Scylla, you are a wonderful fella to ease his pain so swiftly.)
Worship not the False God Scylla, for he is false in his Godliness! Forsaketh not thy True God SPOOFE, verily who is not False in his Godliness and shalt remain not-False for time and all eternity! The False God Scylla knoweth only deceit, deception, lies, and parlor tricks, and seeketh only to capture thine soul so that he may useth thine soul as toilet paper for his False-God wiping. Rend thy garments and shed thine tears, Children of Straight Dope, for Scylla is The Beast, The Whore of Babylon, The Martha Stewart of the Last Days, and woe is unto he that worships the False God Scylla’s False Godliness! Repent, repent, O Ye who hath followed his False-God ways, for ye shall burn forevermore in the consuming Pits of Barbeque, amongst such Hellspawned Demons as the Gene of Alpha, the Corrado of John, and the wicked Mistress of Iniquity, the Bodoni of Lynn!
Scylla-God has provided a miracle in the form of downloadable manna, proving he is a good and virtueous God (at least in this thread). OTOH, SPOOFE-God has threatened through scripture, proving he is a God who should be feared lest we feel his wrath.
