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| reply to keith2468
Re: hidden? but you can see it ;) The 2 biggest potential issues I have with applications are:
1. There appears to be nothing in the EULA that specifically mentions it. Not a big deal unless it acts separate from the original game.
2. it does not uninstall when you uninstall the original game. This is a BIG problem for me since it means whatever this software is doing would continue if I didn't know about it from this thread.
That qualifies as "invasive" and almost spyware / malware in my book. | |
davePremium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
kudos:7 Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
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| said by Sniper3142:
2. it does not uninstall when you uninstall the original game. This is a BIG problem for me since it means whatever this software is doing would continue if I didn't know about it from this thread.
What do you mean by 'uninstall'? A lot hinges on that.
If you mean, there's a hidden entry in the device tree, then big whoop. On some of my systems, there are traces of device drivers I wrote a couple of years ago which I happen to know no longer exist anywhere in the known universe. Nevertheless, the ghost of drivers past still haunts Device Manager.
Once again, there's nothing that I'm aware of that a driver writer can possibly do to affect that.
Of course, it is entirely possible that there is a fully functioning device deliberately left on your system. But no evidence thus produced demostrates whether that's true or not. A node in Device Manager does not mean the driver still exists. | |
| Dave, the device driver stays behind - users reported problems using their USB devices long after they uninstalled the game. StarForce's excuse is that the publisher "chose" to leave it behind and not uninstall it (this by the way confirms that it is being left behind).
Secondly, I don't care if it's just a node in Device Manager - the publisher should always return the computer to the same state they found it in after uninstall is done. I'm a software developer myself, so don't try your BS on me. Sure, a lot of programs leave orphaned Registry entries behind anyway, and that is bad too. This is beyond bad.
Thirdly, regardless of the utility of this device driver it is stupid to expect that a driver using "undocumented" (read, likely to be broken in future by Microsoft) functionality of Windows should be relied upon in commercial software. If you can't do it with documented APIs then don't do it at all, unless you're creating something that only you will use and be exposed to.
Finally, installing device drivers to protect software from piracy is a serious breach of trust and complete overreaction. I think even using a USB dongle would be better, since you can at least remove it as needed. Despite the fact that this software caused damage to people, just imagine what will happen when a competing software company puts out their "protection driver", that starts competing with the first driver for disk and CPU access. By the time you reach 10 of these little critters on your computer you'll be ready to lose your sanity on the account of your computer performance and stability.
And what did they gain in the end? Well, the ability to piss off legit customers. Apparently, cracks for all StarForce protected games were available within days. Yeah, you did well StarForce - superb protection! | | |
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davePremium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
kudos:7 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by StanRad:
Secondly, I don't care if it's just a node in Device Manager - the publisher should always return the computer to the same state they found it in after uninstall is done. I'm a software developer myself, so don't try your BS on me. Sure, a lot of programs leave orphaned Registry entries behind anyway, and that is bad too. This is beyond bad.
OK, please point to the procedure for doing this. It is Beyond Bad to write application code that goes screwing around with registry keys that do not belong to the application - that's the fastest way to system screwups there is.
--
If the driver stays behind, then I agree it's bad.
But no-one actually really said that they found the drivers remaining - they just pointed at some Device Manager node, which is only somewhat related. And they also read bad intent into the word 'hidden', which is just a Device Manager classification of the driver beyond the driver-writer's control. These two things suggested a lot of fuss about the wrong symptoms.
I repeat, failure to remove the driver is bad. | |
| Of course I am not suggesting uninstallers go around removing other people's registry keys; I am specifically talking about applications that after uninstalling leave their own keys present in the registry. But that's just a nuisance compared to what StarForce does.
And yes, leaving the driver behind is bad, and it is confirmed that this is the situation in at least one of the games (see second post on this page by StarForce):
»www.adventurecompanygames.com/ta···t=2&vc=1
Finally, I really don't care about how well they clean up after themselves - the fact remains that people have lost data and time just to play a game they were legally licensed to do, and the only reason for the loss of data and time is that the company wanted to prevent that same user from stealing their product. If the customer did steal the product, they wouldn't have had any of these problems since the crack would have taken care of it. And of course, I'm sure StarForce has ensured the same publishers that their protection software, for the first time in the history of computing, is uncrackable. Brilliant!
This is the problem with using device drivers for protection, every programmer always likes to believe that their code is foolproof and it's a piece of cake to implement. But then reality bites them on the arse and they realize that in the real world their driver will have to deal with hundreds of other drivers that are often buggy themselves. This is why this type of practice is plain unwise. Read the thread above to see some of the annoyances people had to put up with StarForce. | |
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