Definite PR disaster
Creative should be thanking the guy for doing what they couldn't. Instead they want to force new hardware sales onto the unlucky souls who have been duped into "upgrading" to Vista. This puts Creative into the same anti-consumer league as companies like Sony, M$ and BT.
Fortunately, pretty much all of the recent Creative hardware has been rubbish, along with all the software ever supplied with their products, so I won't be missing anything by never buying from them again.
The good news is that this wanton upsetting of existing customers makes space in the market for new companies (who want happy customers) to spring up. Roll on some competition.