Silent Hunter III Warning

[ALF]

Originally posted by GScholz
Prozac time.


http://www.firingsquad.com/features/starforce_interview/

That interview is a pandering joke.  The most important concerns are never touched in the interview.  Even a concern the site puts in the forward, is completely ignored in the question and answer phase:

• Why do you think its ok to maliciously destroy the installs of other legitimate programs like Alcohol so that they not only dont work while your program is active, but are actually rendered useless, even if your 'protection' is uninstalled, and in some cases, cannot be fixed without a complete Re-format and install of the OS?
• DOnt you think its a little pretentious to say its 'ok' that you install your software without permission because the user must have agreed to the EULA which states we can destroy computer up if we want to, is that your position?....what about Demos like Trackmania that DO NOT have a EULA and never warn of Starforce?  Are you that affraid of being upfront and honest?
• Why did a 3rd party have to develop the removal tool?
• You say things like "the developer can make back his expendature in Starforce with just 300-400 copies that are sold instead of pirated"....do you have any concreate numbers on how effective SF is in preventing piracy....no...I said CONCREATE and NUMBERS
• How much is a publisher likely to lose when hundreds or thousands refuse to buy their games because of starforce, and do you have and idea how many people who never used cracks will be introduced to them because of Starforce incompatabilities......do you think these people may just get the next program for free and not bother buying it....since they now know where to go for cracks.
• You elude to 'who wants to download 500 megs'....why would that be so unusual...some game DEMOS are 200 megs now

.

I kept waiting for the question:

"So being that Starforce is the best software program out there and everyone should be shot who doesnt imediatly install it....what are your next plans"

[Kev367th]

Way round it -
Install the game
Get the nodvd fix
Run the starforce cleaner/remover

ONLY to be done on legal installations, I am not advocating cracking copies.

I thought a recent law made it illegal for companies to install things in addition to the main program without a clear indication on the box?

[Panzzer]

Kev said:
I thought a recent law made it illegal for companies to install things in addition to the main program without a clear indication on the box?

Don't know about USA, here in Yurop it seems to be enough to mention it in the EULA. There's supposedly a paragraph about StarForce in there... but who reads them anyway.

Reschke, I haven't noticed StarForce after installing PF+FB+AEP pack, but of course I haven't known to look for it.. I just recently bought and installed SH3, so I haven't checked my drivers after installing PF etc pack.

[AKDogg]

there are 3 drivers that I found of Starforce.  They are located under non-plug and play drivers under the hidden drivers view in device manager.  I uninstalled then and then reboot.  No more starforce at least in the device manager.

After looking into it even further, I decided to check registry for starforce and found it installs another set of drivers in your C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers folder under the name sfdrv01.sys, sfsync02.sys and sfhlp02.sys.

[Jwizzle]

Originally posted by ALF
That interview is a pandering joke.  The most important concerns are never touched in the interview.  Even a concern the site puts in the forward, is completely ignored in the question and answer phase:

• Why do you think its ok to maliciously destroy the installs of other legitimate programs like Alcohol so that they not only dont work while your program is active, but are actually rendered useless, even if your 'protection' is uninstalled, and in some cases, cannot be fixed without a complete Re-format and install of the OS?
• DOnt you think its a little pretentious to say its 'ok' that you install your software without permission because the user must have agreed to the EULA which states we can destroy computer up if we want to, is that your position?....what about Demos like Trackmania that DO NOT have a EULA and never warn of Starforce?  Are you that affraid of being upfront and honest?
• Why did a 3rd party have to develop the removal tool?
• You say things like "the developer can make back his expendature in Starforce with just 300-400 copies that are sold instead of pirated"....do you have any concreate numbers on how effective SF is in preventing piracy....no...I said CONCREATE and NUMBERS
• How much is a publisher likely to lose when hundreds or thousands refuse to buy their games because of starforce, and do you have and idea how many people who never used cracks will be introduced to them because of Starforce incompatabilities......do you think these people may just get the next program for free and not bother buying it....since they now know where to go for cracks.
• You elude to 'who wants to download 500 megs'....why would that be so unusual...some game DEMOS are 200 megs now

I'm sorry, but your complaints are crap.

1.  Starforce doesn't "destroy" Alcohol 120% or NERO.  Older versions of it would refuse to run the game unless you uninstalled Alcohol/Nero, but I have both installed with SH3.

2.  The entire industry is based on installing software you don't give permission for.  You're not asked to give permission to install codecs, uninstallers, patching utilities, registration utilities, etc.

3.  Starforce itself released the utility to uninstall Starforce, so you're dead wrong... again.

4.  In English, please?

5.  Obviously publishers have a better idea than you do about this.  Most people are unaffected by what few issues Starforce has.  If it were anything but the case, you'd see a class action lawsuit a long time ago.  Most people don't even know they had it installed.

Paranoia paranoia everybody's coming to get me,
Just say you never met me...

[Panzzer]

It might have been something completely different, but my SH3 wouldn't install with Nero installed on my computer... And I bought the original DVD, so it's not like I was trying to install a cracked version of the game...

[ALF]

Im not going to be drawn into some argument over the merits of starforce, I have become informed and only wish everyone else to be informed.  Read up on Starforce, if you like the way SH3 developers are treating you, thats your business.  I refuse to support it.

[mora]

I guess I'll have eMule it then. I was going to buy it before I saw this.

[Siaf__csf]

I made the mistake of buying it / installing it. If it porks my machine it will be both the most expensive game I've ever had and the last UBI product that ever finds it way to my computer.

[Kev367th]

Like I said, there is a way round it -

Install the game
Get the NODVD fix and install it
Get the Starforce removal/cleaner tool and run it.

You then have a game that works without needing the DVD in the drive and NO Starforce hidden drivers.

Funnily enough this was available the same day the game was released, lol.

[stantond]

Based on what I have read, the NODVD patch/crack/etc is for verision 1.0.   The last patch V1.1 does not work with the V1.0 NODVD.  I expect a V1.1 NODVD patch to be released soon.  

I probably won't get it though unless I can download it on my iMac.  I refuse to visit any more warez sites because they are infested with nasty windows viruses/trojans/backdoors, etc.  especially if you enter using good ole IE.  I am not sure about Mozilla Firefox (which is all I use nowadays).  

Maybe it's my unadventurous spirit, but I'll take Starforce over dealing with those warez types.   Windows XP is much better than Win9x, but it's still windows.  Maybe after 6 months I'll try the patch if I still have the game installed and if I find it on a FTP site or Usenet.


Regards,

Malta

[Kirin]

Another concern about Starfarce...

no 64-bit version yet... so no-run under Win64, ty...

[Jwizzle]

Originally posted by Siaf__csf
I made the mistake of buying it / installing it. If it porks my machine it will be both the most expensive game I've ever had and the last UBI product that ever finds it way to my computer.

Yeah, get back to me next week when you're posting about how awesome SH3 is and how you never had an issue with Starforce.

[Wotan]

First I want to say I bought and paid for SH3.

Does anyone have a NODVD fix for patch 1.1?

I only ask because I would like to get rid of Starforce. The only NODVD fix I have found was for V1.0.

I guess I could uninstall / reinstall without the patch...

If you don't wish to post it on the board you can email it to me at

jg53 AT 4jg53.netprism DOT net

or juts visit my squad forum:

4./JG53

[Siaf__csf]

Jwizzle if I knew there was this kind of risk I wouldn't have bought the game in the first place.

I don't need third party bs on my computer for a joke of a copy protection. They've never worked and they never will. I already started to regret installing the whole thing when the 'automatic driver update utilities' etc. started popping up. The whole thing has bs written all over it.