Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 4:57 pm

Id just like to bounce a question to you really that Im being asked on the mud that i frequent.

Will cMud be able to run from a pen drive?

I know that people have been able to get zMud to run from a usb drive like that.

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:38 pm

Well, you can put CMUD on a pen drive and run it from there. But you still have to install it using the Admin user on the computer to get the copy protection to work.

Since the main purpose of a pen drive is to take your programs with you to use on other computers, it's not really recommended. It will leave your license behind on the computer. Sure, you can unlicense it, but then you can't use your license on that computer again.

Until there is a *standard* USB protocol that is built into Windows for handling copy protection, I probably won't support this. Right now various vendors are all doing their own thing when it comes to copy protection on USB drives.

Think of it this way: if there was a way to put a licensed copy of CMUD/zMUD onto a pen drive, then what stops someone from just copying that pen drive image to the Internet for everyone to copy? Until that is prevented by a standard that all secure USB drives support, and the support it built into Windows, then there isn't much I can do. It's like the old DOS days where you had to program specifically for every video card because there wasn't a universal API you could program to.

Don't know if Vista contains any support like this or not. And yes, it's unfortunate that copy protection and piracy issues ruin nice ideas like this. It would be nice for normal, honest users to be able to take CMUD with them. But I don't see any way to make that possible right now.

If people are doing this with zMUD, then they are likely running a cracked version. zMUD uses the same copy protection as CMUD so it has the same issues.

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:46 pm

yeah i totally see the problem... its surprising how many people have asked me though.

thanks for that zugg, ill relay back Smile

im wondering if the people doing it with zmud are using the free distro..

Im the main script writer on my website and im very very strict with people running hacks, infact, if anyone admits running a hack they generally get insulted off the mud, so its rare for us... ive already got quite a few lined up to license cmud when it goes alpha purely so they can use the scripts that I previously had posted to my website, which ive been converting over the last week into packages, which is now happening pretty well perfectly.. partly cos ive got my head around the best ways of doing thing though i think.

Wizard Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 1127 Location: London

Are U3 drives not an option?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3

Just curious, since it seems to provide the security you're after with the portability others would like.

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:03 pm

Guinn,

See here for Zugg's answer to U3:

http://forums.zuggsoft.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=25102&highlight=usb+drives

Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:28 pm

And as I said already above, I'm not going to support some vendor's pet protocol. I'm waiting for a standard to be adopted by Microsoft with Windows support.

The U3 protocol was invented by Sandisk and is a closed standard. Until it's an open standard that all USB Driver vendors can use, then I'm not going to do anything with it (unless the Armadillo copy protection people decide to support it themselves).