EVE-Online Patch Makes XP Unbootable

Nobo writes "CCP's latest major patch to the EVE-Online client, Trinity, comes with an optional DX9-enhanced graphics patch that dramatically improves the visual quality of the in-game graphics through remade models, textures, and HDR. It also has an unfortunate bug: the incredibly stupid choice of boot.ini as a game configuration file, coupled with an errant extra backslash in the installer configuration. The result is that anyone who installs the enhanced graphics patch overwrites the windows XP c:\boot.ini file with the EVE client configuration file, bricking the machine on the next boot. Discussion in a couple of forums threads is becoming understandably heated."

Comments

Bricking?

[interactive_civilian]

Why does the summary say "bricking the machine"? Does the machine become a doorstop that cannot be fixed? Can you not (and this might even be more complicated than necessary, but as a rather inexperienced Windows user, this came to mind first) use a Linux Live CD to boot and edit the necessary files? I DNRTFA, but if it is just an errant backslash, it should be a piece of cake to fix.

Hardly "bricking" IMHO.

Partially correct story

[NATIK]

Everything the newsstory says is correct, but the issue have been fixed and anyone updating now wont get hit by it.

It is still a momumental fuckup though and the one responsible needs to be kicked in the balls for that kind of stupidity.

Re:Insanely sloppy... but not without precedent

[iCEBaLM]

At one point trying to uninstall Final Fantasy XI Online would remove hal32.dll.

It's not bricked!

[wiredog]

Dammit! When did "bricking" expand it's meaning from "unbootable under any conditions due to firmware (such as the BIOS) being improperly overwritten" to "Oops, have to pull out the rescue CD"?

Alarmist

[Sobrique]

If you don't install your games to C: you're fine.
If you've got a 'basic' OS install, e.g. C:\WINDOWS and one partition, you're fine - the boostrap loader guesses, flashes up an error, and boots anyway.
It's a bit of a fubar, but hardly the next apocalypse.

Re:How is this possible?

[illumin8]

BRICKING THE PC?

WTF is with you people? Ever since the Apple made iPhones "bricks", this erroneous use of the term has seeped into our technical vocabulary. People, it's not a brick if it's still usable. When a piece of electronics is really bricked, that means that the ROM is in such an unrecoverable state, that it can't even be flashed with a new working ROM, and needs to be either thrown away, or sent to a factory for repair.

Now, the term bricking is being applied to any piece of electronics or computer equipment that won't boot an OS.

It's not bricked if you can just reinstall or repair Windows and have it work again. It's bricked if you flash a bad ROM BIOS image and now you can't even turn the thing on.

Re:Insanely sloppy... but not without precedent

[TheThiefMaster]

Uninstallers and patches are rarely tested fully. For patches, normally problems stem from the company having only ever tested the clean game at the latest build, or having only tested patching from a clean install of the original retail copy.

Also, this EVE patch wouldn't "brick" an XP SP2 machine that had Windows installed to the primary partition of the primary drive (i.e. most pcs), because Windows XP SP2 will automatically try to boot that if it fails to find boot.ini. Assuming they did test the patch, this would explain why they didn't notice.

Not a brick, dammit!

[CoreDump01]

A bricked device either to be sent in to the vendor for repairs, or ,as an alternative, can only be revived via special debugging hardware by people with god-like skills in a certain areas.

A blown OS is not, and never ever will be a brick. Get your terminology straight for once. Wikipedia explains rather nicely the nature of real "brick".