Defeating Pirates should not be a chore for honest buyers

[scoob 18]

i've been FSing since the first release for the MAC.i have only reinstalled FS ONCE because of a system crash - in '99i installed FS98 (FS6) once. the same for FS7 (install on the same computer as FS6).upgraded computer and installed FS7 on the new machine. this FS on old computer, buy/build new computer and install FS pattern continued for FS8 and FS9. in no case did all the addons get moved to the new computer ... i only install those that i use. this is a GREAT way to clear out the 'blot' in an FS install.i have installed FSX twice on one computer (the same computer as my FS9 install). why? customer complaint saying an installer was faulty. i took down my FSX install 'for the team.' (FYI the installer was fine, the problem was with the user's machine.) i was not having a problem with FSX.i have owned PC's (PC here means 'personal computer', not IBM 'clone') since the the late 1970s and have experienced only two system crashes: the above noted crash in '99 and a virus on my non-FS computer in '08.Jahman, how/why is it that you are continually needing to reinstall?--

[rightseater 0]

Browsing to his key or entering his purchase information would just take way too much of his precious time. I wonder where he finds the time to use his hundreds of add-ons?

I was wondering who would say it first. Congrats to Jim!

[Guest jahman]

I see no reference to try-before-you-buy.

What part of: "proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis" is not clear to you?

Jahman, do you have any Flight1 add-ons? And do you use the Flight1 online account system...it’ll automatically manages all your F1 keys online with 1 user name and 1 password. It has records for all my purchase....even from the old days.

I do, and I like the "account" part, but I seriously dislike all the other hoops the Flight1 e-commerce wrapper makes me to jump through. Again, I'll put-up with this stuff for an initial imstall, but it's the reinstall that gets me when I have to deal with hundreds of add-ons.

BTW, I find it hard to believe you actually have hundreds of add-ons :( How many add-ons do you actually have? -round number wise.

From MegaSceneryEarth, 200. OK, no DRM on these, but I have to feed them in one by one, clicking 200 EULA OK buttons! I have 450 entries in my scenery.cfg file. Say 3 minutes each to install, thats 200 x 3 = 600 minutes, i.e. 10 hours of clickety-click that I can't go do anything else. Add 3 hours for FS Global 2010, another 3 for FS North America (for some reason reading DVDs is really slow), 8 for REX (actual, timed), that's 24 hours, or a whole day for those add-ons alone, and if you have 2 hrs leisure time per day (and that's a lot for some these days!) then you're in for 12 days straight on these add-ons alone, so say three weeks total for all add-ons.So here's my payware, 100% fully paid-for, add-on count: 295 scenery add-ons, 60 aircraft, 10 instruments, 6 add-ons to drive hardware. Grand Total: 371.Now motivate yourself to do a 371 add-on reinstall because a reinstall "might" cure sporadic CTDs. Right. You don't. Instead you try to mind the CTDs less (there's FSUIPC autosave), but you get frustrated. The more frustrated you get, the less you fly. The less you fly, the more you post on AVSIM :-)Mind, I didn't buy all these add-ons at once: After many years of simming I jumped onto the FSX bandwagon (round Earth, Garmin 500, FS Global 2008, GoFñight MCP-Pro were big hooks) and then just kept buying add-ons and upgrading as the years went buy. Take the 200 MegaScenery add-ons out of the equation (only three purchases, with California State alone at 121), so that's 171 add-ons in 52 months since the release of FSX, or just over 3 Add-Ons per month.OK, I admit, the Megascenery add-ons give me the least headache because they don't have DRM and because I backed-up an image of the installed files. But other sceneries put stuff into FSX directories that I know little about, add code about modules to the XML.cfg file and scenery objects to another repository, add airports info, etc, so saving an image of these is not really workable.

Implementing an auto installer for your entire library of add-ons is technically and practically extremely doubtful - at least for FSX.

Agreed, FSX is what it is, but Flight is still up in the air, so to speak. :-)

However, the Flight Marketplace might address some of the roadblocks. Still I wouldn’t trust such a tool myself if I had more than a few add-ons.

Its actually easier than you think, provided add-ons follow these rules:

1. Don't ask for keys on reinstalls (put them in the registry or wherever)
2. Get the FSX install path from the registry
3. Save the target install path (important for sceneries) in the Registry or wherever
4. Allow for an "unattended" and "silent" install with no OK buttons to click,
5. MS Flight to include a directory (or a variable pointing to a list of drives and directories) where downloaded add-on installers (and add-ons from DVDx can be copied) are located.
6. FMS Flight to implement a sceneries.cfg-style file named "addons.cfg" where each add-on adds an entry for itself as it installs for the first time.
7. A matching dialog box to manage the add-ons together with a "re-install Add-Ons" button and the ability to de-select add-ons that are not to be reinstalled on a line-by-line basis (as you can do with scenery add-ons)
8. A "scan all add-ons for updates" button, then allow which add-ons to actually update
9. Extra credit: The add-on manager sports the "tree-view" control, so you can quickly access and edit install information for each add-on. Pretty much like regedit.
10. Microsoft to issue "Certificate of Good Behaviour" for add-ons safe to install. No more:

a. Replacing FSX native files, b. Placing add-on files into native FSX directories (into sub-directories is OK, though), c. A big no-no, imlementeing add-on uninstall simply by reverting to a saved xml.cfg that was saved when the add-on was installed, instead of searching the current xml.cfg file and intelligently deleting all xml code relative to that specific add-on.)So you see, not so hard. If there's a will, this could be the way.And remember, the easier we simmers can deal with add-ons, the more add-ons we will buy! :-)

And :( please tone down the nasty rhetoric.... :(

Apologies , it's not my nature, but the attacks have been pretty vicious in their tone from certain folks. Cheers,- jahman.

[Guest jahman]

Clicking on the license agreement is too much for him and even Flight1 is not automatic enough. Browsing to his key or entering his purchase information would just take way too much of his precious time. I wonder where he finds the time to use his hundreds of add-ons?

Read my previous post. When do you find the time to "use" your scenery add-ons?I am one of your paying customers, so I don't appreciate your tone. BTW, Shouldn't you be working on fixing the winds aloft problem?

Jahman, how/why is it that you are continually needing to reinstall?

Good question: I get sporadic CTDs on the same flight, about one of every 3 flights over a 2 hour flight and at different times into the flight. I have even reverted to static weather, and my FSX max RAM is way below the MAX. I get that "App Hang" error for FSX with no faulting module identified. So I decided I'll just suck it up and wait for Flight, at which point I might also upgrade my PC to Sandy Bridge, which would be the excuse I need to re-install the add-ons, provided of course they are still compatible with MS-Flight. Otherwise Ì'll just re-install FSX and see how she runs, as I'm not about to chuck all my Add-Ons so I can run MS Flight.

I was wondering who would say it first. Congrats to Jim!

Thanks for your support and for contributing to find an intelligent solution and for reading my posts where I clearly state the nature of my complaint. Maintaining large FSX installations is a problem without an Add-On manager (and the many mis-behaved Add-On installers out there). You might want to re-read the OP for a refresher.Cheers,- jahman.

[JSkorna 137]

Ohhhh so its not the clicking. It's the time it takes the programs to actually install. Wow, I wonder what we could do about that? Maybe make FS 4 style add-ons for FSX? Or go back to 5.25 disks, those loaded pretty fast!Installations take time and there is no way around that. But don't tell us that clicking on a few "OKs" takes up your time. So 24 hours is going to be 24 hours no matter what methods Flight will use.

[TPerson 15]

Todd,Read my previous posts: We´re talking hundreds of add-ons resulting in endless hours of just entering keys and clicking meaningless OK buttons. The registration keys can be stored in the registry (others do!) and the OK buttons can be done away with for re-installs. Nobody is complaining here about dealing with a handful of add-ons.Cheers,- jahman.

Tens, hundreds, whatever! You know that famous athletic shoe slogan? Just...Look if you're only re-installing Flightsim and its addons and not actually re-installing your OS then I suggest that you invest in a external hard drive and some backup software.Now I do agree that the MegaSceneryEarth install process is totally ridiculous. It does not make any sense to have to run an installer for each and every tile that you want to use which for the state of California is over 100 tiles. But...Your complaint is really falling on deaf ears and I think your tone is about to get this thread locked. So why not do what I do when I have to re-install everything (which is rare). I just take a deep breath and think about that shoe company!Todd

[Guest jahman]

Ohhhh so its not the clicking. It's the time it takes the programs to actually install. Wow, I wonder what we could do about that? Maybe make FS 4 style add-ons for FSX? Or go back to 5.25 disks, those loaded pretty fast!

Punched card would be best.

Installations take time and there is no way around that. But don't tell us that clicking on a few "OKs" takes up your time. So 24 hours is going to be 24 hours no matter what methods Flight will use.

You really are putting in a good effort to misinterpret what I'm saying! I really don't care how long it would take to reinstall FSX and all add-ons, as long as I can step away. Got it?I also provided concrete suggestions on how this might be achieved. Here's one more: Since 2 TBy HDDs are so cheap, add-ons shipping on DVDs ought to allow for copying onto the simmers software repository HDD and allow for automated silent installation from there (except for first-time install of course).The software install and maintenance problems for corporations with thousands if empoyees (i.e. number of workstations) is huge and costly. So Microsoft and others have developed software to automate software installations since back in 1994, including any required licensing tasks, and including automating the installation of software installers that were not designed for automatic and silent installation, to help reduce the TCO-Total Cost of Ownership. We simmers are seeing a similar problem, as little of this techonology has trickled-down to us at the OS level (e.g. Microsoft Update) and even less at the FSX add-on level.And as we hit that limit where the size of our FSX installation becomes unmanageable, whe stop buying Add-Ons. Your Add-Ons. Mind, the impact for Flight will be even greater because the size of the add-ons will increase dramatically as texture and scenery resolutions increase exponentially due to BW availability, so the time to develop an Add-On Manager is NOW.

Tens, hundreds, whatever! You know that famous athletic shoe slogan? Just...Look if you're only re-installing Flightsim and its addons and not actually re-installing your OS then I suggest that you invest in a external hard drive and some backup software... Many thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the tip, I have two external backup HDDs as software installer repositories.

Now I do agree that the MegaSceneryEarth install process is totally ridiculous. It does not make any sense to have to run an installer for each and every tile that you want to use which for the state of California is over 100 tiles. But...Your complaint is really falling on deaf ears and I think your tone is about to get this thread locked. So why not do what I do when I have to re-install everything (which is rare). I just take a deep breath and think about that shoe company!Todd

Thanks again for your input. This discussion helps me draft the email I will be sending to the MS Flight team requesting the implementation of an Add-On Manager and suggested basic guidelines for add-on installer quality minimums (all of which they surely are considering already, but customer input often helps!)Cheers,- jahman.

[JSkorna 137]

MS has always had a hands off approach to 3rd party software and I'm sure that is still the case.

[Guest jahman]

MS has always had a hands off approach to 3rd party software and I'm sure that is still the case.

Indeed, I hadn't thought of that.But the Add-On Manager could also be an add-on on its own (or a free-standing utility).Perhaps your company could be interested? Somebody else? I would certainly buy such a product if it let me rebuild an FSX installation 100% unattended and could poll appropriate URLs for updates (and install them). It would be a godsend, actually! And you would have two customers right off the bat: Me and the OP (I presume). Would a poll be useful in gauging potential interest?Cheers,- jahman.

[WarpD 824]

Indeed, I hadn't thought of that.But the Add-On Manager could also be an add-on on its own (or a free-standing utility).Perhaps your company could be interested? Somebody else? I would certainly buy such a product if it let me rebuild an FSX installation 100% unattended and could poll appropriate URLs for updates (and install them). It would be a godsend, actually! And you would have two customers right off the bat: Me and the OP (I presume). Would a poll be useful in gauging potential interest?Cheers,- jahman.

The 'installation' requirements you seek would eliminate security of software licensing. Because of that, there is no way I would ever want to support your demands... and yes, they are demands.I'm sorry your scenery is causing you so much heartache, but it's not my problem. Nor is it any other developer's problem except PCAviator.You clearly could care less about a developer's product being stolen. Your entire attitude throughout this thread clearly shows that in your mind a developer simply doesn't have the right to do whatever it can to protect it's product because it's inconvenient for you.I do have a solution that would protect the developer's product adequately:1 - A system wipe if any illegal software is found by the protection process.2 - A system wipe if any attempts to crack the software's protection is detected. Total system wipe with no more installations of any software covered by this new process. Willing to risk your system to that level for a 'one-time-key' install? Because it's the only way I'd even consider supporting any of your demands.

[Guest veeray]

Why would you need to do that installing a rootkit... after all you wrote a copy protection scheme that lasted 6 months longer than the Xbox 360.

[Guest jahman]

The 'installation' requirements you seek would eliminate security of software licensing. Because of that, there is no way I would ever want to support your demands... and yes, they are demands.

Currently I place every add-on in it's own directory together with a text file containing the purchase confirmation email, the activation keys email and the URL I downloaded the Add-On from. Why can't that process be systematized? Windows already has a store for logon credentials, a store for public-key certificates, a store for Internet Explorer to save logon credentials for web sites. What's wrong with storing add-on activation keys? Heck, I bet CryptoAPI already has objects classes for doing all of this, and you might even be able to purchase ready-made components for managing keys securely without having to inmerse yourself in the complexities of CryptoAPI.

I'm sorry your scenery is causing you so much heartache, but it's not my problem. Nor is it any other developer's problem except PCAviator.You clearly could care less about a developer's product being stolen. Your entire attitude throughout this thread clearly shows that in your mind a developer simply doesn't have the right to do whatever it can to protect it's product because it's inconvenient for you.

Actually I do care, because If you don't make money selling your add-ons you will stop making them. What I do not care about is developers throwing out the baby with the bathwater, i.e. the idea that because you have to protect yourselves from thieves we loyal customers who buy your products have to put up with absolutely every inconvenience that you deem your needs for protection demand, as the OP said. Seems rather one-sided to me. So throw us a bone via silent re-installs and updates (remember, we have no issue with add-on registration on first install) that can be automated.

I do have a solution that would protect the developer's product adequately:1 - A system wipe if any illegal software is found by the protection process.2 - A system wipe if any attempts to crack the software's protection is detected. Total system wipe with no more installations of any software covered by this new process. Willing to risk your system to that level for a 'one-time-key' install? Because it's the only way I'd even consider supporting any of your demands.

I honestly fail to see the situation as black and white as you do, but I am open to trying to understand your point of view if you provide me with the main lines of you reasoning, and so improve the reasonableness of my suggestions.In any case, other than for cost and learning-curve reasons, I could use the SCCM - System Center Configuration Manager from Microsoft (available sincs 1994) to do a walk-away, automatic clean install of Windows, FSX and all my Add-Ons, starting with a HDD full format, and I could do it today, because that's what this tool was designed to do. But you must admit the SCCM is a bit of overkill.Can we wok together on this?Cheers,- jahman.

[mgh 89]

What part of: "proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis" is not clear to you?- jahman.

Where does it say "proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis" ?

I therefore propose that developers themselves put their products free ofcharge on torrent servers, together with a URL where honest users like me(100% of software paid for) can pay for the software we use.- jahman.

stop wrigging!

[Guest jahman]

Where does it say "proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis" ?

Here, Paragraph 1, Line 1.Cheers,- jahman.

[louiseSEUK 2]

I wonder. In the time it has taken to just read this thread, how many addons could I have installed?DRM? Flawed, it's digital. But if it doesn't inconvenience me, I don't care about it.Customers are not always right.Some of the suggestions here are getting into the Jobsian distortion reality field, I fear.