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Smoke -

You are either a little bit naive, or attempting to be devious and failing miserably. Being as this is the holidays, I am going to be an optimist and believe the former of you.

If you do a full install of CM from the CD, the .exe does not run off of the CD. In fact, nothing does - the program only briefly accesses the CD on startup to verify its presence for copy protection purposes. Installing a separate (cracked and illegal!!) .exe file on your hard drive will gain you maybe 2-3 seconds on startup, and nothing once the game is up and running.

If you have less than a full install on your hard drive, the program will occasionally have to access the CD for data while running. Installing a separate .exe on your hard drive would not remedy this, though - no matter where the .exe is, it still needs the data.

I suppose it's a minor inconvenience to have to insert the CD into the drive every time you want to play, and take the music CD or whatever that you had in there before out, but this is the price we all have to pay because there are people out there who would rather steal than pay a reasonable price for others' hard work.

If you were just confused about how the program works, I hope this clears things up for you. If, on the other hand, you were trying to secure a pirated copy of the game code to avoid paying for it, please go to hell.

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: YankeeDog ]</p>

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Maybe he just thinks that CD access checks suck, because some people's computers are in different rooms for noise-reduction and have to walk over.

Or maybe because all games modulo Tacops require this and the Nazis at Talonsoft go as far as crashing your computer when you remove the TOAW CoW CD while the program is running. So I have to start some instances of CMBO first, then switch to TOAW to get my PBEM environment. This means wasting my time, and I belong to those who payed full price for everything.

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: redwolf hates artillery ]</p>

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He's probably compaining bout CD checks and copyright protection for games in general, I'd imagine. They annoy me too, but they're practically a fact of life now. Be happy they dont use SafeDisk2, one of the more annoying, restrictive and buggy protection systems Ive heard of.

EDIT: Since it requested, here is an "extemely abnormal" error message. I figure the admins will get around to this thread sooner or later anyway. tongue.gif

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Sorry, UBB has encountered an unexpected, fatal error. This error is extremely abnormal. Please contact the board administration. The error text is:

/usr/home/discuss/Forum1/forum_1.threads: Expected to write out 253824 bytes, but file on disk is only !]

Here is the backtrace:

Backtrace: ubb_lib_filehandle.cgi:185 -> sub UBB::FileHandle::tracer

Backtrace: ubb_lib_filehandler.cgi:132 -> sub UBB::FileHandle::close

Backtrace: ubb_lib_files.cgi:411 -> sub UBB::FileHandler::close

Backtrace: ubb_lib_files.cgi:65 -> sub main::WriteHashToFile

Backtrace: ubb_lib_posting.cgi:145 -> sub main::UpdateForumTopics

Backtrace: ubb_new_reply.cgi:468 -> sub main::update_forum_summary

Backtrace: ultimatebb.cgi:622 -> sub main::submit_new_reply

» Please use your browser's back button to return. <hr></blockquote>

[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: Equinox ]</p>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dogface:

Red wolf I dont understand.

Are you compaining ?

about CMBO? Talonsoft?? What do you mean???<hr></blockquote>

Both, although Talonsoft is of course ten times worse.

What is the projected losses from not having a CD protection on CMBO? Remember that is actual losses are only those people who:

- have enough personal energy to learn CMBO so that they desire to have it

- have $50 and would spend them if they have to, although that would prefer to have a pirated copy

- at the same time are too stupid to copy a semi-copy-protected CD

Mind you, people who don't put out the $50, even of they can't copy it, are no financial losses.

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I would argue that if you haven't installed a spare CD-ROM drive in your computer soley to keep your CMBO disc in, then you aren't a true Combat Mission player. (10 points) ;)

Of course, a good alternative is to get one of those applications that creates a virtual CD-ROM device on your hardisk, and then image your CMBO disc onto that. (5 points)

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: Bad Monkey! ]</p>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bad Monkey!:

I would argue that if you haven't installed a spare CD-ROM drive in your computer soley to keep your CMBO disc in, then you aren't a true Combat Mission player. (10 points) ;)

<hr></blockquote>

Is CMBO actually able to find the CD in a second drive? I never tried.

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I've got two dirves, but I STILL installed a virtual CD for the CM image. It is GREAT. No worries about a broken CD, it's quick and painless and I've even uninstalled and re-installed from the virtual drive. Now my original CM CD is framed and hanging on the wall :D

Search for "Virtual Daemon Manager" for the virtual CD-Drive. It's freeware.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Binkie:

Yes!!! 10 extra points, that bumps me to another category! smile.gif <hr></blockquote>

[Looking dazed and confused like the newbie I am] What?? Huh?? Categories?? What categories?? :confused:

I guess if I have to ask, I must be in the bottom one. :(;)

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Redwolf wrote:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>What is the projected losses from not having a CD protection on CMBO? Remember that is actual losses are only those people who:

- have enough personal energy to learn CMBO so that they desire to have it

- have $50 and would spend them if they have to, although that would prefer to have a pirated copy

- at the same time are too stupid to copy a semi-copy-protected CD<hr></blockquote>

The simple truth is that the easier it is to pirate software, the more it will happen. Period. Even small hurdles can eliminate vast numbers of illegal copies.

However, the main thing is principle. If you did not buy it, you have NO RIGHT to use it. Period. I don't care if someone who would never purchase CMBO uses a cracked version once... that is once more than I am happy about.

Using CMBO, or any piece of software, is a privilege. The purchase price buys a person that privilege. Sure, it would be nice to assume that everybody buying a copy of CMBO would not allow it to be pirated, but the undeniable truth is that this is a fantasy wish.

Checking for the CD is practically the only way to dent piracy without burdening the customer. Until we can utilize better software copy protection for our intellectual property rights, we will continue to code the EXE to look for the CD.

It is also interesting to note that we, the makers of the game, use the same EXE that you all do. If we can live with having the CD in the drive during boot up, so can anybody else. Afterall, Charles could code up an internal copy that wouldn't look for the CD in about 5 minutes. The fact that one doesn't exist even internally should highlight what a big deal is being made out of a rather minor issue by some.

Steve

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