FS2004 "No CD" utility

[Garry Russell]

I bought FS.9 in August 2004 and it was well known old hat then.and it has come up know and then since :think:



Garry

[Pielstick]

I use no-cd cracks for every game I have installed, not because I am worried about damaging the disc... but because I am a lazy sod and I can't be bothered going to dig around the cupboard to find the disc every time I want to play a game

Anyone wanting to find a no-cd crack for their games I would recommend you take a look at www.gamecopyworld.com If there is no crack available for the game then you can download a special disc image file and use a programme like Daemon Tools that creates a "virtual" disc drive on your computer. You can mount the image on the virtual drive and the game will think the disc is in the drive. It's a God send for people like me who move around a lot and don't want to to have carry loads of discs around everywhere

Requiring the disc in the drive has got to be the most pointless anti-piracy measure in existance, I wonder why the industry still clings onto it?

[Nigel H-J]

I've had it on my space here on the ftp for longer than I can remember along with the 9.1 patch so all you had to do was ask

'Ere Dave, how can I ask about something that I didn't know about? :roll:

Nigel.

[DaveB]

The YOU was general Nigel. 99.9% of all games have a no cd crack so why should FS9 be any different. It's been brought up a number of times before hence why I had it handy on the ftp ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[petermcleland]

I use a Virtual CD for FS9.1 so have no need of the No CD Crack...But just an important note about using the No CD Crack on FS9.1 as opposed to FS9...You MUST use the correct version of the No CD Crack (the one for FS9.1 and NOT the previous FS9 version)...Non compliance can result in missing needles and scales on the instruments of some payware aircraft.

Naturally, my Virtual CD (copy of the FS9 CD4) will never wear out and it also means that I am using the correct "FS9.exe" file with ALL its improvements :flying:

[DaveB]

Unless you actually bought FS9 late in it's life patched to 9.1 Peter.. I don't see how that can work.. unless of course you copied the patched exe to your virtual CD which I guess you must have done :think: TBH.. the 9.1 nocd patch will never run out or break down either and saves you rather more space ;-)

Whatever.. the nocd patches are clearly marked as such but I'm sure that more than one unsuspecting bod has tried to use the original after patching the sim... there's always one ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Quixoticish]

To be honest I'm always surprised at the amount of people who have never heard of the 9.1 patch for FS, a short while back I used to be involved in a lot of VA's and I was forever telling people to patch things to 9.1 to fix various bugs in and around the sim. Fortunately when FSX was first released so many had performance issues that I don't think there is a flight simmer that hasn't heard of the two service packs for FSX!

Microsoft Game Studios have always been rather shifty about patching. Whilst some developers will release a patch that weighs in at the hundreds of megabytes and improves things and adds features as well as fixing bugs with Microsoft you were always very lucky if you received one patch from them that sneaks out of the back door to very little fanfare; you'd certainly never really see a version number past 1.1 even with the big franchises like Age of Empires and Mechcommander/Mechwarrior. Fortunately that's changed with FSX although I have a sneaky feeling we won't see anything else performance or bug fixing wise now SP2 has rolled out, although we may get another expansion pack depending on how well Acceleration sold.

I suppose, deep down, we all know patching is a bad thing and is often abused as a means of fixing things that should have been fixed in release; but then a part of me also acknowledges that PC games are a much bigger business than they used to be and obviously publishers are much stricter with deadlines as a result. I always expect to patch when I buy a game, in fact one of the first things I do is visit the developers website to check for updates, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people aren't savvy about patching in general. What's that... you want to buy a game, take the box home from the shop and play it?

Sorry for going off on a tangent!

[petermcleland]

Unless you actually bought FS9 late in it's life patched to 9.1 Peter.. I don't see how that can work.. unless of course you copied the patched exe to your virtual CD which I guess you must have done :think: TBH.. the 9.1 nocd patch will never run out or break down either and saves you rather more space ;-)

Whatever.. the nocd patches are clearly marked as such but I'm sure that more than one unsuspecting bod has tried to use the original after patching the sim... there's always one ;-)

Dave,

The Update download to FS9.1 actually changes the FS9.exe file with many changes in it...The program when started merely looks for CD4 in the drive...It finds my virtual CD4 in the virtual drive and is perfectly happy with that. So my installed fully updated FS9.1 runs...and it runs with the genuine updated FS9.exe file and NOT the No CD Patch version. Who knows what little improvements in the updated FS9.exe file are wiped out by that No CD Patch (The No CD Patch is simply a got at and modified FS9.exe file). If you Right click on your FS9.exe file and select properties and then the Version Tab it should be version 9.1.0.40901...That is the version that was installed with the 9.1 Upgrade. Anything else is a No CD Patch version

BTW...I never bought FS9 Dave...As a beta tester I was sent a free set of CDs :flying:

Edit...Note also that the correct file is 1362 KB and is dated 01/09/2004...You will probably find the No CD Patch version is much smaller.

[DaveB]

Hi Peter..

I didn't buy my first copy either but that's another story

Yup.. the penny dropped after I'd typed that passage but didn't go back and edit it as I thought it might be useful for other readers in case their collective pennies hadn't dropped

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Quixoticish]

Unless you actually bought FS9 late in it's life patched to 9.1 Peter.. I don't see how that can work.. unless of course you copied the patched exe to your virtual CD which I guess you must have done :think: TBH.. the 9.1 nocd patch will never run out or break down either and saves you rather more space ;-)

Whatever.. the nocd patches are clearly marked as such but I'm sure that more than one unsuspecting bod has tried to use the original after patching the sim... there's always one ;-)

Dave,

The Update download to FS9.1 actually changes the FS9.exe file with many changes in it...The program when started merely looks for CD4 in the drive...It finds my virtual CD4 in the virtual drive and is perfectly happy with that. So my installed fully updated FS9.1 runs...and it runs with the genuine updated FS9.exe file and NOT the No CD Patch version. Who knows what little improvements in the updated FS9.exe file are wiped out by that No CD Patch (The No CD Patch is simply a got at and modified FS9.exe file). If you Right click on your FS9.exe file and select properties and then the Version Tab it should be version 9.1.0.40901...That is the version that was installed with the 9.1 Upgrade. Anything else is a No CD Patch version

BTW...I never bought FS9 Dave...As a beta tester I was sent a free set of CDs :flying:

Edit...Note also that the correct file is 1362 KB and is dated 01/09/2004...You will probably find the No CD Patch version is much smaller.

Peter, no improvements will be wiped out by the no-cd patch. The no-cd for 9.1 is a modified version of the 9.1 executable, not the 9.0 version, the only thing removed from cracked executables is the copy protection and disk checking, hence the smaller file size.