Help, my game asploded!

[J. M. Pescado]

...is GameJackal, which costs ten bucks to register...

This seems very purpose-defeating.

[Ambular]

...is GameJackal, which costs ten bucks to register...

This seems very purpose-defeating.

Well, not if your purpose is to preserve your original disks so they don't wear out or explode and threaten your personal safety.  :p

[J. M. Pescado]

Registering software is inherently contrary to your personal safety. Not to mention you're peddling without paying the advertising fee.

[KatEnigma]

I used Game Drive for awhile, but it takes longer to prepare the image than it does to download the cracked versions.  Why pay $10 to do all the work, when someone else does it for free?

[syberspunk]

I don't get why a couple of you seem so very frightened of a cracked exe, that you're so willing to run a cracked .iso... which is just as capable of containing viruses!

But an image isn't really "cracked" is it.  I mean, I could be wrong, but I imagine that software that backs up cds such as alcohol doesn't exactly "crack" or "hack" the game, as opposed to a cracked .exe which probably actually involves some personal tweaking. *shrugs*

I find using an image far less likely to involve viruses since any body can just do it using widely available software that  I'm just reluctant to fork the cash over for.

Isn't that what virus scanners are for? 

Virus/trojan scanners aren't infallible.  Don't some of them have to be "trained" on new ones anyway?

If I'd bought my computer pre-loaded with windows and didn't have a key, or I had a cracked key, they wouldn't have given me that customer service code and I would be SOL. Probably would have had to wipe the thing, reformat and reinstall.

Uhh... if you bought a machine from a legitimate source with pre-loaded windows, you should be given a product key regardless, even if in most cases you are given recovery cds branded by the vendor that built your machine.  They are legally required to place that product key sticker on the machine itself.

Regarding the locked-out build and buy modes: That seems to only happen when you install the game from the commonly available, poorly done cracks. If you're using an install from real disks and just bypassing the cd on startup, whichever method you like should be fine.

This seems to happen mostly with cracked .exes whereas, if you just have an image, you shouldn't have to worry about it.  Because basically an image should just be an exact copy of the cd itself without any additional crap (afaik).

[quote author=syberspunk link=topic=8139.msg225267#msg225267 date=1177102
Why such an old version?  Daemontools is up to 4.09, which was recently released and works fine.  I've been using the 4.x versions since they were released with no problems at all.

On my brand new shiney machine, I am using v4.08 without any problems (so far... *knocks on wood* ).  On my older machine, when I first started using Daemontools, I think it was one of the older versions.  I might have transposed the numbers... it might have been 4.03 or something like that... but I am fairly certain that when I moved up to 4.06 I started having major problems with my computer.  The OS would constantly freeze up and after multiple re-installs, I appeared to narrow it down to daemon tools.  That is to say, when I did yet another rebuild and didn't install daemontools at all, the computer worked fine.  The only difference I could think of, before I was having problems, was the fact that I had upgraded daemontools.  The version prior to that didn't seem to give me any problems.  I posted all about this, and I vaguely recall something being mentioned about one of the other daemontools related modules or something being a problem.  I tried uninstalling that portion alone, but it still didn't help.  So I just stopped using it on my older machine.  My sister's compy didn't seem to have a problem, so I just chalked it up to the fact that her machine was newer.  I think her OS build already had SP2 included whereas my old machine pre-dated SP2.  And even though I tried installing daemon tools after updating to SP2, I would still have lock up issues.

[Ambular]

Registering software is inherently contrary to your personal safety. Not to mention you're peddling without paying the advertising fee.

No, I'm recommending a program that works well for me and that I think is pretty darn cheap.  If I was advertising, I would have said "Buy GameJackal(TM) now for the low, low price of only $9.95!  Hurry, supplies are limited!  Order now and receive this fabulous set of Ginsu knives absolutely free!"  Also, I would have provided a link.  :p

[Gwill]

I don't get why a couple of you seem so very frightened of a cracked exe, that you're so willing to run a cracked .iso... which is just as capable of containing viruses!

I'm not afraid of any viruses it might contain.    I'm worried about all the bugs the cracked EXEs contain.

[KatEnigma]

I don't get why a couple of you seem so very frightened of a cracked exe, that you're so willing to run a cracked .iso... which is just as capable of containing viruses!

But an image isn't really "cracked" is it.  I mean, I could be wrong, but I imagine that software that backs up cds such as alcohol doesn't exactly "crack" or "hack" the game, as opposed to a cracked .exe which probably actually involves some personal tweaking. *shrugs*

Assuming that what you're downloading is the actual iso, and not a virus...And assuming that they did just image it, and not insert viruses into the code.  You're either downloading what the person claims it is or you're downloading a virus- what they claim it is has no bearing on its likelihood of being a virus. 

[Gwill]

I usually download stuff from pirate bay, and there you can tell very well from the feedback whether or not stuff is genuine.

[KatEnigma]

I usually download stuff from pirate bay, and there you can tell very well from the feedback whether or not stuff is genuine.

And that's where I got my cracked exe. 

[Leticron]

I'm not afraid of any viruses it might contain.    I'm worried about all the bugs the cracked EXEs contain.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Usually the cracked .EXE is identical to the original one
with the exception that the check for an existing Original-CD is circumvented.
So you get exactly all your bugs back, you've come to love and cheerish, on your original CD.
In some cases (where the cracked one is significantly bigger than the original) the exe had to be extracted first (topic EXE-compactors)

No Problems so far with all the No-CD solutions I've found on GameCopyWorld and GameBurnWorld. From my experience, they're both far more reliable than PB

There is no freakin' way I'm going to shell out another $10 for a legally bought game. (I ran into that problem several times before, when myson started ruining our PS2 Discs)

-le

[Diala]

No, I'm recommending a program that works well for me and that I think is pretty darn cheap.  If I was advertising, I would have said "Buy GameJackal(TM) now for the low, low price of only $9.95!  Hurry, supplies are limited!  Order now and receive this fabulous set of Ginsu knives absolutely free!"  Also, I would have provided a link.  :p

I've used it as well, but it seemed to have problems with GLS.

Also, the program itself is no longer being updated. The makers can no longer sell it, either. So much for that.

[Aggie]

Sooo, sara_dippity, how did things works out for you?

[sara_dippity]

Well I still have a broken cd drive (will until this weekend or so), but the cracked .exe hasn't caused any issues and much complaining at Walmart did land me a new copy.

[Kristalrose]

Well, Sara, that must have been some complaining at Wally-World.  At mine, they just say, "No.  Next?"  and someone moves you out of the way.  If the case to a computer disk has been opened, they do not allow them to be returned. 

Which is why I avoid Wal Mart as much as possible.  (Sigh)

I have the EA game link too, and have GLS, Pets, and Seasons from it.  I have had one issues that caused me to unistall and reinstall the games again.  For some reason, they just stopped loading after a time.  After the reinstall, they worked fine.   :-\But, yeah, it sucks if your internet is down and you'd like to play your game.  It happened to me Sunday.  Our DSL router went down, and it took me an hour on the phone with tech support before I could play. 

[miros]

They may have been a bit more lenient since she was exchanging a "defective" game for the exact same title.  Might have been even more effective if she'd had the broken bits to put in the case! 

See?  It was broken when I got it!