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ggrobot
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Joined: 28 May 2004
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 Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:44 am Post subject: GOG will remove the password protected RARs [38772] |
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Last week, I posted an article about the appearance of some password protected archives in GOG's game installers for Windows. These protected archives sparked a lot of accusations as a number of PC gamers believed that GOG was implementing a sort of DRM in a specific number of games. Well, good news everyone as GOG dec
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Source: GGMania headlines
GGMania.com - Daily Gaming and Tech news |
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heretic
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Joined: 27 May 2004
Posts: 2847
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:46 am Post subject: |
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Here's the technical story if you want it --
1.- GOG has, for the longest time, used a program called Inno Setup for its windows installations. The bulk of their installations come as a single .exe which contains the packed game and which unpacks it, and installs it alongside the appropriate registry hooks, compatibility fixes ect. So far, so good.
2- Recently, the GoG team began experimenting with separating the packed game data from Inno Setup for a few large titles for downloading purposes. The installer .exe became an Inno Setup stub and the packed game data came in .rar files, which they used for a number of production process advantages. Because the material within these .rar files was pretty much going to be near useless unless it was unpacked by the Inno Setup they made the fact that they were using standard RAR files opaque by labeling them as .bin files and giving them a password based on the md5 of the game ID.
So what's the problem? - You simply get all .rar data in the game installer simply by running the .exe file right? Well yes, if you're on Windows.
4. - Although not technically FOR Linux, traditional GoG Windows Inno Installer files were unpackable via specialized tools like innoextract and innoup and made to work (to some degree or another) on Linux via tools like WINE. An unintended consequence of the GoG team's usage of the new multifile format is that it broke the ability of Linux users to extract data using innoextract/innoup. This caused a degree of anger and resentment among the Linux gaming community. Then someone discovered that the .bin files were actually just .rar files - and that these had been password protected - and the collective presumption was made by a segment of the community that GoG had purposely put a password in place to keep them from the juicy usable data they needed.
5. - It's at this point that the "story" as you've seen it reported here comes into the fore. Accusations of GoG "locking down" their installers with a password are made - the password is cracked and the information within found not all that useful for hopeful Linux gamers - GoG staff react by stating that the Rar passwords weren't going to change, explaining why the passwords were used in the first place, and explaining that their primary raison d'etre in designing a Windows installers was to provide the best installation experience on Windows.
6. As of now they've removed the passwords on the RAR files of their multipart Windows installers, which resolved the philosophic issues many have felt, but doesn't (immediately) do much to help those Linux users affected. Everyone is happy except those Linux gamers for whom the problem created by the switch to multipart files hasn't been resolved yet. The bright side of THAT portion of the story though is that a version of innoextract which can handle GoG multipart .rar files seems to be on the horizon.
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Csimbi
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Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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Location: The bright side of the dark side
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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I guess the real question is:
Would a game work if you simply unpacked it (from those RARs)?
I mean, GOG's installers set some registry keys, created shortcuts (containing command-line parameters) too.
Without those the game might not work and these script kids would come banging on GOG's door yet again. |
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