No user who doesn't know how to use google would be unaware of how to fix it. Also need help ask someone it works a lot of the time and for this problem most people should know how to figure it out.
Really? Are you serious? Look around you and open your eyes. There are lots of everyday users who are very competent using their devices, but don't need to know (or wish to know) the insides and how it operates.
Let's not forget our customers/users/family members who didn't ask for their devices to be bricked. How much time has been wasted by the end user because the device doesn't work today, but used to work a few weeks ago.
How many devices have ended up on the trash heap because they just stopped working?
Just because members of this forum have an interest (and ability) in electronics/computing, we should never forget our customers/users/family members may not have that same ability/talent.
FTDI has the right to protect their IP, no argument there. However, a good corporate citizen that respects the final customer (the end user), would have merely notified of the suspect device - "Not an FTDI device - please contact your supplier/manufacturer for the correct driver."
FTDI does NOT have the right to vandalise my device.
Ozwolf
Open you eyes type "FTDI" into google and read the answers are there...
A user cannot be "very competent" if they are not capable of learning or using something called Google. At best they can be graded as having an "minimally acceptable level of basic knowledge with no further interest in the subject, C 61%". Any competent person should be able to use Google (or any other not as good search engine), otherwise people around them should assist them in carrying out said tasks and teach them who is able to assist them.
HDCP does the (it was working just last week and now it isn't) that much more frequently and there is no effective uproar (You so much as turn on the system in the wrong order and it will quit working for a while). FTDI did the same and the uproar is extreme and correct, although the consequences are in my view trivial, a joke, so far from having a killed device its miles apart, ....
Let me be clear I think FTDI is really mean/evil DRM type actions with that driver but the bypass is a joke sorry it is, ever install a printer that windows refused to install, same process. (There is a pictorial guide on that in the other thread)
I do family tech support and people do ask me to help, it isn't that hard and it isn't a technical skill to ask for help. (interpersonal skills its not a tech thing) Plus how many consumer devices that use the default VID/PID VCP driver are there.
Isn't the most common use a USB to RS-232 adapter cable what kind of non-technically inclined user is going to know today what an RS-232 serial port is or what a null modem cable does or what a huge difference is for TTL Serial signal levels.
FTDI put your device into a non-plug and play reduced functionality state by altering the PID to 0000, it is in no way physically damaged / vandalized (Now students and vandalism that is a real problem). I can help via remote desktop if someone is for some reason unable to follow the picture instructions for this issue. Also plug and play is not something that always existed and not all devices even today are plug-in-play.
A person who is unwilling to learn or ask for help is not going to get much done in at all. (This is broadly applicable and is not something that only certain people have to have)
But yes FTDI should not have left people in a HDCP your device half works just not in the way you really want it to state. They should have just caused a Microsoft driver error (generating custom error messages may add bloat but I'm not sure) and let the device driver fail for that combination.
End result is the same someone who is capable is going to have to look into it (There is no difference really, other than that one warning message you can still bypass it with the same instructions).