Elaine was joking about 'Mine mine mine' - don't take it literally.

(...), but it is also being reported and confirmed by JV, a complete re-install of Windows O/S is necessary to recover. I do not understand why this last step is necessary.

 

(...)

 

 

Your computer, including your flightsim, does not require a recovery. They will keep working just fine - except for the ORBX installations, which would have been removed.

 

The OS reinstall is only required in case of a reinstall of the ORBX stuff - as their installers will again check for remaining traces of former illegal ORBX installations ("cracked versions").

 

ORBX may or may not have a "shortcut" for the reinstall of their products - probably nobody will find out about that before being caught and then legally purchasing the ORBX products in question and then contacting ORBX staff again.

While I completely understand Orbx want to protect their IP, what I find a little draconian and mis-guided is that not only the Orbx folder is being deleted upon detection of illegal versions of Orbx products installed, but it is also being reported and confirmed by JV, a complete re-install of Windows O/S is necessary to recover. I do not understand why this last step is necessary.

As I understand, the detection system is looking for very specific entries made in the registry by cracked ORBX installers. I'm pretty confident that the deletion routine is 100% accurate, because (as JV said), the registry entries in question can ONLY be present if a cracked installer has been run at some point - and will remain in the registry forever even if the pirated product is deleted.

 

Thus, the requirement to re-install Windows. It is the only way to get the traces of the pirated products out of the registry. The registry entries could be manually removed of course, but for obvious reasons, ORBX is not about to reveal what or where those registry keys are, so users have no other choice but to re-install the OS to clean up their system.

 

I personally have no problem with this. Users who are facing this problem have done this to themselves. Nobody has forced any user to install illegal copies of ORBX software - those who did so, made a free will choice to steal - knowing full well that doing so is morally and ethically wrong. ORBX is simply forcing such users to take responsibility for their bad decision.

Jim, thats not true -- anyone who programs and has knowledge of the Windows registry knows that you can force delete registry entries.

 

I own a few Orbx programs, just frustrated with the way things have to be done to detour these kind of things...e.g. wrapper -- takes something like 10 minutes just to unwrap the orbx package....

 

FSDT -- installs this 'addon' manager which I find annoying, especially when I get this pop up at random times to update. 

 

Prepar3D -- I forgot to uninstall (I  manually deleted) and I had to e-mail (took them 2 days to get back) to reset my account so I can reinstall. 

 

Etc...etc...etc..

Jim, thats not true -- anyone who programs and has knowledge of the Windows registry knows that you can force delete registry entries.

 

That's exactly what I said!

 

"The registry entries could be manually removed of course"

 

My point is simply that ORBX is not about to explain what specific registry entries are left by the pirated installers that triggers their deletion routine - why would they?

 

If a particular user has sufficient computer programming knowledge to figure out on their own where the "contamination" in the registry is located, more power to them - but for most users are probably going to have to re-install the OS to clean the registry.

 

And again, I emphasize that a user who finds himself in that situation has no one to blame but himself. ORBX has not damaged any user's operating system in any way. They are simply doing a "drug test" on the registry, (in a manner of speaking) and if the test comes back "positive", then ORBX products are going to be disabled until the problem is fixed.

 

I agree that the FSDT Couatl program is problematical, and creates a lot of issues for many legitimate customers.

 

As far as "long unwrapping times" for ORBX products, I've never experienced that - other than the time it takes to decompress the zip archives that the software comes in when it is downloaded. Many ORBX scenery products are huge - many gigabytes in size. That's just the nature of scenery, and whether it is distributed in a discrete zip file, or as self-extracting executable, decompressing is going to take time. I recently downloaded the full VECTOR installer for my new P3D system, and it only took a minute or two to uncompress the installer.

Simple fact here is that if everyone bought software legally we wouldn't be having these conversations.

 

So we all pay the price for those that steal software.

 

Hirdy

With Hirdy on this  one,  cant  see  what the issue  is

Lots of confusing information from many directions. I bought couple of FTX DVD´s second hand and have them installed. Does this tag me for elimination?

 

If so, all Europeans (EU laws about copyright) should remember that going into someone´s computer is a crime as well, not to mention deleting something from there without owner´s consent. In Finland computer games can even be loaned from library and accoding to my country´s laws if I own a original product (not copied), in this case a DVD, I have a right to use it for my own purposes. This particular case is even worse as the malware deletes also "legally" purchased products. I´m afraid if this becomes a law case, ORBX will lose more money than it hopes to collect by answering crime (?) with a crime.

 

Could there be a softer method to check one´s computer if  it is "contaminated"? By all means catch the pirates, but this kind of lynching attitude is not the right attitude and the means used at the moment are questionable to say the least.

Well I am not sure what is going on with Orbx, but tonight I checked and found all my Orbx region entries have disappeared!

 

Orbx folders seem to be present, but all my FTX region entries in my scenery.cfg have gone (e.g. PNW, SAK, ENG and others) . Still have Landclass and Global plus the individual airports.

 

I have now traced this back to the last Orbx libraries that were installed at the start of November. Nothing else Orbx was installed since then.

 

While not the same problem being reported,  something is definitely up. Time to report the issue to Orbx folks!

 

Grrrrrrrr!!!

As mentioned above, you are only "renting" the software. As JV explained on the Orbx forum, the analogy is with your driving license and permission/privilege is given to drive on public streets, but it could be revoked.

 

 

Very good Mark, Its a good way of describing it actually.  

While not the same problem being reported,  something is definitely up. Time to report the issue to Orbx folks!

 

Grrrrrrrr!!!

You realise you are outing yourself out as a pirate? Apparently illegal versions of orbx software installs a registry entry which is detected by the newest orbxlib. When it detects it - 'poof' all your stuff is gone.

Lol OmniAtlas, I really don't think that's the case 

You realise you are outing yourself out as a pirate? Apparently illegal versions of orbx software installs a registry entry which is detected by the newest orbxlib. When it detects it - 'poof' all your stuff is gone.

I don't think this individual is having that particular problem. He said that his ORBX folders and files are all still present. His issue is that he has lost entries in the scenery.cfg for some (but not all) of his ORBX products.

 

The anti piracy routine totally deletes all installed ORBX folders and files - that does not appear to be the case here.

 

This may be a genuine problem with the ORBXLIBS update, or perhaps the FTX Central program. Perhaps a file/folders permission issue, or the installer for the library update did not fully complete its actions when run.

 

It would probably be best if that individual contacted the official ORBX support system.

You realise you are outing yourself out as a pirate? Apparently illegal versions of orbx software installs a registry entry which is detected by the newest orbxlib. When it detects it - 'poof' all your stuff is gone.

 

If you read what he said, you would know that his folders are still there, just the config entries are missing.

Doesn't FTX central remove the full-fat region entries from the scenery.cfg when it's set to global rather than just disabling them? That might explain Mark's issue?