EVE Online Update Cripples Windows XP, Developers Urge Caution

by Nick Breckon, Dec 05, 2007 11:39pm PST

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24 Threads | 70 Comments

#29

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By: Jobos x Show Full Post

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Wow, that's one of the worst mistakes in the history of video games, even if it doesn't affect too many people. I'm confident I could have gotten my computer up and running within a few minutes, but I know how to boot into a command line -- if you don't have the boot floppy or boot cd you're screwed.

I know that MOST people I talk to have no boot disks of any kind and give me a dead-blank look when I mention one. And even if they did, they wouldn't know how to use it because their only computer is down so there's no access to the internet to troubleshoot.

Seems like a cool game, though.

Dec 06, 2007 3:13am PST

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Wow, that's one of the worst mistakes in the history of video games, even if it doesn't affect too many p... : Jobos
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  remember uninstalling Myth 2? there was a pennyarcade about that : jackalope
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  Back in the day uninstalling Half-Life deleted my entire Games folder. All games gone. Bye bye. Luckily t... : SlamDunk
  - Lucky! otherwise you would have had no games left.. oh wait : phatpak

#36

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By: jonin x Show Full Post

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Wow, GLad I don't use XP anymore. how did they miss that?

Dec 06, 2007 4:16am PST

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Wow, GLad I don't use XP anymore. how did they miss that? : jonin
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  They don't use XP either? : Sailor of Fortune
  - I bet they just tested the full install and missed the patch. But thats just guessing : jonin

#56

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By: mexpak x Show Full Post

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WOOHOO!! Vista finally pays off!!!

I wish this game appealed to me more, but I do love reading about it (minus this snafu)

Dec 06, 2007 8:32am PST

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WOOHOO!! Vista finally pays off!!! I wish this game appealed to me more, but I do love reading about i... : mexpak
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- Take THAT XP users! : jonin

#53

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By: Goncyn x Show Full Post

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Good reporting, shacknews, I probably wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for this story. And I patched as soon as I got home from work last night. I'm wondering if I might not be affected because I have the game on my D: drive, but I'll have to check after work. This is a pretty huge mistake for them to make, and I'm afraid it might have a serious negative impact on their image, which is already a little dinged up after the whole BoB employee scandal. :(

Dec 06, 2007 7:43am PST

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Good reporting, shacknews, I probably wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for this story. And I ... : Goncyn
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- You won't have any issues. The problem was a typing error that pointed to \boot.ini (root file) instead o : zerog83
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  Sounds like there needs to be some kind of consumer protection against these half -ass developers and dis... : plEEk
  - shit happens : jonin

#3

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By: afty04 x Show Full Post

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Nice QA department. I can not even comprehend how something like this makes it to production.

Dec 05, 2007 11:44pm PST

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Nice QA department. I can not even comprehend how something like this makes it to production. : afty04
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- http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=15725789#itemanchor_15725789 : SinistarX
- You are right about the comprehending part. But it's ok. We're not mad. : [7]kami

#35

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By: MoreVespeneGas x Show Full Post

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I see a lot of people bitching about the QA department, and while that certainly could be the case, it could be management not allowing QA to test it to get it out the door too. Food for thought.

Regardless this is a awful mistake, whoever is at fault.

Dec 06, 2007 4:15am PST

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I see a lot of people bitching about the QA department, and while that certainly could be the case, it co... : MoreVespeneGas
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  Things like this often turn out to be some "harmless" last-minute change that was bodged in and not prope... : nudel
  - There's also the possibility that most of their testing for the install happens in a virtual environment ... : SinistarX

#2

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By: tcs x Show Full Post

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wtf? That's not a flaw but a direct sabotage attempt. This doesn't happen by accident, looks like there was a developer trying to screw their employer before they left or so.

Dec 05, 2007 11:43pm PST

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wtf? That's not a flaw but a direct sabotage attempt. This doesn't happen by accident, looks like there w... : tcs
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- I agree, I see no reason for them to be messing with boot.ini. They probably tried to take over the world... : GodZilly
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  Not quite. From what I read and know of Eve, it seems quite possibly accidental, although stupid. Som... : Conan
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    I don't believe that for a second. A programmer that doesn't know about boot.ini? That's like a mechani... : mrwolf710
    - I'm sure lots of people are unaware of boot.ini. It's a hidden file that very few people ever have to mes... : nudel
    - How many devs have you worked with? In my 12 years of QA, I've met maybe four developers that actually g... : SinistarX

#61

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By: silentw x Show Full Post

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Oh LOL. Myth 2 uninstall, anyone? I hope to see a PA comic about this one too....

Dec 06, 2007 10:30am PST

Oh LOL. Myth 2 uninstall, anyone? I hope to see a PA comic about this one too.... : silentw

#60

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By: avatar_58 x Show Full Post

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Oh dear god.....reminds of when I uninstalled HellFire for Diablo and it removed every last one of Sierra Online games. I'm not talking the windows Sierra Utilities - based ones. I'm talking EVERY sierra game. The sierra folder was gone. Did I mention this was only a week or so after I had set up every last one of my dos games and had shortcuts all worked out and everything?

Suffice to say I broke that CD into a million pieces out of rage. :o

Dec 06, 2007 9:14am PST

Oh dear god.....reminds of when I uninstalled HellFire for Diablo and it removed every last one of Sierra... : avatar_58

#1

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By: DarkWolf5 x Show Full Post

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New Vista Marketing Campaign?

Dec 05, 2007 11:42pm PST

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New Vista Marketing Campaign? : DarkWolf5
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  lolz damn that 5 character minimum... : tKillbox
  - ? : FuzzyOnion

#55

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By: S1ing B1ade x Show Full Post

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To all you people coming up with conspiracy theories, you're retarded. It's been explained many times already but there is apparently a file called boot.ini in the game. The patch script accidentally found the windows boot.ini and deleted it instead.

It's not inconceivable that this wasn't found in QA, because the problem won't manifest itself until the computer is rebooted. If their QA guys didn't reboot the computers between the time the bug was introduced and when it went live, they wouldn't have seen it.

It's a terrible bug. But it is a very understandable bug and it is understandable why it wasn't caught in QA. CCP is actually fairly good in comparison with other MMO companies in that usually they're updates/patches are pretty stable. This was a big gaff, but it's silly to suggest CCP did it on purpose for some reason.

Dec 06, 2007 8:05am PST

To all you people coming up with conspiracy theories, you're retarded. It's been explained many times alr... : S1ing B1ade

#46

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By: astonish x Show Full Post

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OK, nevermind all the obvious shit about terrible QA, but what the fuck does any game have any business doing anything to do with the boot.ini file?

As a coder I can see absolutely zero reason why a game would want anything to do with that file! Who the fuck writes that code?

Dec 06, 2007 6:40am PST

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OK, nevermind all the obvious shit about terrible QA, but what the fuck does any game have any business d... : astonish
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- The conspiracy theorist in me says that's exactly the file that at least one person was looking for withi... : royalally
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  It's not the windows file they were trying to edit. They have a boot.ini in the game directory that conta... : deveus1
  - Yes deveus1 is correct. At my company we have a master database list of OS file names that we check first... : axiomatic

#52

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By: T-900 x Show Full Post

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I'd say Ouch, bad luck.

They've got a unique game and are succeeding with it. I salute them. Hope this won't hit them too badly, whether a mistake or a developer prank. I guess they'll learn their lesson for testing ;) Wonder how it feels like for the coder who typed that line? Has he stopped beating his head into his desk yet?

Dec 06, 2007 7:19am PST

I'd say Ouch, bad luck. They've got a unique game and are succeeding with it. I salute them. Hope this... : T-900

#14

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By: Quaunaut x Show Full Post

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Luckily, they had removed it from their servers quicker than they removed the link- smart move. I remember launching the game up only 2 hours after it was up and already it was gone. Sometimes mistakes happen guys, but CCP is doing their best to fix these quickly, which is admirable.

Note: XP Users can download the full premium version here without worry:
http://www.eve-online.com/download/windows.asp

Its only the upgrade version that hurts the Windows boot.ini.

Dec 06, 2007 1:19am PST

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Luckily, they had removed it from their servers quicker than they removed the link- smart move. I remembe... : Quaunaut
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  I wouldn't really call it admirable, more so saving their ass from a shit storm of lawsuits, and doing th... : Bantis
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    Shitstorm of lawsuits? For getting rid of boot.ini? Its one of the most basic files on your machine. It n... : Quaunaut
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      Uhm.. we're tech savvy, but as someone who does IT for a living, 90% of computer users wouldn't know how ... : Bantis
      
      and this is the american legal system, so it doesn't take much. : Bantis
      
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      Yeah, someone in the EVE thread was talking about how he called Dell tech support and ended up removing h... : Nick Breckon
      
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      Another kid is on there talking about how his final paper is due tomorrow and now he can't get to it. I'd... : Bantis
      
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      why the hell are you updating a mmorpg if your final paper is due tomorrow : OrkO
      
      I'm doing the same thing :( I'm just glad I heard about the bug before I restarted my comp. : Moonbase Commander
      
      ^ knows wtf : jackalope
      
      Maybe his paper was already finished? : deveus1

#37

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By: Traandus x Show Full Post

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Well, first of all I read "between the lines" that if you have Vista you are cool, the bug is not affecting the Vista... Second, I remembered that at EVE Fan Fest this year the Microsoft team doesn't appear at the conference, and later I understand that they were upset for the appearance of the Mac and Linux client (Apple was there with two gorgeous Macs presenting the new client of EVE on Mac).
So, I really believe that is just a WANTED mistake. It is too stupid to be an accident.
It is a SABOTAGE!

Dec 06, 2007 4:22am PST

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Well, first of all I read "between the lines" that if you have Vista you are cool, the bug is not affecti... : Traandus
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- Not sure if that is a serious post or not but it's not really in the devs' interest to make people hate t... : nudel
- ^ sony rep : dewdman

#43

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By: freakynipples69 x Show Full Post

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Well this is the first time yet that I am actually glad I have Vista.

Dec 06, 2007 5:52am PST

Well this is the first time yet that I am actually glad I have Vista. : freakynipples69

#11

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By: Twist of Cain x Show Full Post

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Awesome. Nice to see that the Pool of Radiance guys managed to land new jobs. :)

Dec 06, 2007 12:22am PST

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Awesome. Nice to see that the Pool of Radiance guys managed to land new jobs. :) : Twist of Cain
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- Haha, I was going to post that. Although this one isn't nearly as bad. : shredomatic

#15

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By: Bantis x Show Full Post

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Way to remotely QA test your shit... Man I'd hate to be CCP right now, the shit storm this will lead to..

Dec 06, 2007 1:30am PST

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Way to remotely QA test your shit... Man I'd hate to be CCP right now, the shit storm this will lead to.. : Bantis
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  The interesting thing was that the test server versions of these patches didn't have this problem. : Reptile
  - More interesting: i patched up pretty damn fast (like seconds after release), including the premium conte... : [7]kami

#27

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By: slorkluk x Show Full Post

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Boot to Recovery Console, type:
bootcfg /rebuild
Hit enter, your computer's fixed.

Dec 06, 2007 2:47am PST

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Boot to Recovery Console, type: bootcfg /rebuild Hit enter, your computer's fixed. : slorkluk
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- Exactly. Patch didn't do anything but bring awesome and win to my pc, btw. : [7]kami

#5

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By: tKillbox x Show Full Post

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Oh my God who tests this sh*t? Monkeys? Senators? That's just stupid.

Dec 05, 2007 11:59pm PST

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Oh my God who tests this sh*t? Monkeys? Senators? That's just stupid. : tKillbox
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- So true. boot.ini is as sacred a file as my "ficustreeporn.zip" is. oops, TMI. : dawurz
- Whats funny is that the upgrade worked fine on singularity (test server) right up to launch without it do... : JuffoWup

#8

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By: Skrynkelberg x Show Full Post

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Why name a game file boot.ini? Then you're just begging for things like this to happen.

Dec 06, 2007 12:13am PST

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Why name a game file boot.ini? Then you're just begging for things like this to happen. : Skrynkelberg
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- No kidding - let's call the game resources ntoskrnl.exe and kernel32.dll while we're at it... pagefile.s... : TabsAZ

#22

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By: moshman x Show Full Post

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haha, this is hilarous. wtf were they thinking

Dec 06, 2007 2:04am PST

haha, this is hilarous. wtf were they thinking : moshman

#9

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By: mallfouf x Show Full Post

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They have nothing to do with boot.ini at all.

Dec 06, 2007 12:14am PST

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They have nothing to do with boot.ini at all. : mallfouf
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- They also have a file called boot.ini - I guess they update the wrong one. : crummynz

#12

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By: Sailor of Fortune x Show Full Post

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I'm actually downloading the patch (using Vista) from their main site right now. The patch isn't being pushed down via the game client.

Dec 06, 2007 12:40am PST

I'm actually downloading the patch (using Vista) from their main site right now. The patch isn't being pu... : Sailor of Fortune

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