Follow-up on EVE's Boot.ini Issue

Krinsath writes "CCP, publishers of Eve Online, have posted a Dev Blog detailing the circumstances leading up to the deletion of XP's boot.ini file, which was earlier discussed on Slashdot. The blog post has intimate details about how the mistake occurred (a new installer from their normal one), how they responded and what CCP has learned from it. While fairly dry, it is to the company's credit that they're being open about one of the more serious bugs to crop up in gaming's recent history."

Comments

I was affected by this...

[kcbanner]

...luckily I boot useing grub.

It's nice when companies are honest

[_Shad0w_]

If only more companies were so honest and straight forward when they cockup. It almost makes me feel like playing EVE again. CCP can consider themselves as being given a virtual karma bonus.

Although I can't help but wonder if the "honesty is the best policy" choice was because of their handling of the last PR cockup.

Re:How is that even possible

[Bellum Aeternus]

I did patch EVE as a non-privileged user on my XP Pro system and the problem didn't happen to me. It does seem to be that since most people basically have to run as an administrative account to make XP "work", CCP was able to damage the OS as they did.

This is a multi-part failure. One part Microsoft for making an OS that almost requires standard users to run a privileged account all the time to make basic applications work. One part CCP for developing software that damaged the underlying OS.

My only hope is that either Microsoft begins developing software that not only protects users from the outside (they're still yet to do even this) as well as from themselves. They should take a page from Apple's book on how to do this; or Linux adoption picks up and we start seeing more of the applications I (and the bulk of business and home users) need being developed for it.

I cant help but wonder...

[Nezer]

I have never been into MMOs. I just didn't get them. However, in the last week things have changed and it's due, in part, to this bug.

You see, until this bug happened EVE was totally off my RADAR screen. When I read about the bug on /. last week I went to the companies website and found myself intrigued. Further discovery that they didn't charge $50 for the box on top of the monthly fee was also appealing. Further, I see client software for Macs and Linux. Intrigued I download the Mac client and create the trial account. Two days later I'm hooked and sending them my CC #.

If it hadn't been for this bug, I probably would have never bought their product! They say that any publicity is good publicity and I think this is true. Sure the SNAFU was pretty bad yet the product was still compelling enough to buy it despite a pretty bad QA miss. This latest response from the company will only help further get their name out there and is truly an opportunity to make lemonade from lemons.

Re:How is that even possible

[Deviate_X]

"how is it even possible to remove a system file that is necessary to boot the system. Unlike the EVE representative making this statement I am going to blame Microsoft,"

The boot.ini file is actually protected. It is specifically marked as a System File, Read-Only and Hidden. This means that to modify the file you need to remove these attributes in a specific order first before you can modify or delete it, even if you are logged in as Administrator.

The only way to prevent software from doing bad things to important system files not to store important system information in text files on the filesystem...

Installer "technology"

[kabdib]

I'm not aware of a single installer package on Windows that isn't a useless, complicated, badly-documented, bug-ridden piece of crap. The times when I've had to use (say) InstallShield, I've seriously thought about finding a new job. This stuff sucks *and* blows. (Don't get me started on USB support and BlueTooth. Oh my God. Don't even think about reading about that stuff: Once you crack open the docs and see the wavy tentacles, the squamous mouths, the eyes, the eyes, the eyes that . . . well, you'll never be quite the same again. T-tr-trust me on th-that).

Remember the happy days of "just copy" installs, which worked great on MacOs in the 90s? Upgrade to a new system? Just copy your "apps" folder over.

The question, "What kind of installer should our OS have?" is like asking, "Should we drink the red poison or the green one?" Just asking the question seals your doom.