Game Updates, SDC/Impulse, and Other Impending Doom

[Evil Stormbringer]

Okay guys, Mumblefratz and I have discussed this one and I now feel that I will share a dilemma with you.
Since my ban, in which Brad did refund my money for my digital purchase of DA, I went out and purchased GC2 Gold. Keep in mind I still owned my retail version of DL and had this registered from day one. I registered the game with a new email account as well as some "different" personal info and had no problems updating if I chose to.
When TA came out I looked high and low for a retail version and could find none nor could I seem to find it online anywhere else but from Stardock. So I broke down and attempted to purchase the game but every time (3 attempts) my order would not process and I was told to contact sales, which I did. Turns out since I was banned I could not purchase anything from their online store. Okay then.
My wife decided to try and purchase TA for me as my birthday is near... November 25th by the way for those of you who wish to send gifts;), and she was successful. Game came via snail mail as I insist on having a hard copy to help me sleep better at night.
I go to install the game and it tells me that the latest build of DA needs to be on the rig in order for TA to work right. My version of DA is 1.5 and the newest, prior to 2.0, is 1.8 or something. Also, TA installed Impulse, at least the setup file, on my rig... which I did not like (I still can't download and install Impulse either as it tells me I need the most recent version of it as well). In any event, using SDC and some account info switching I was able to update DA so that I could play TA. Now here comes the issue.
I go to play DA and it asks me to activate the product. I enter the info and clicky clicky and get denied. Contact Stardock of course. So being an honest fellow I do so stating exactly who I am. Comes back that since I am banned there is nothing sales or support can do. So then my wife, God love her, contacts Stardock and is told in a reply that there is nothing that can be done and she shouldn't buy games for me (I still have the email and would be glad to share it with any disbelievers). So they have her as being the registered owner of GC2 TA and Sins of a Solar Empire and me as the registered owner of GC2 DL/DA and GC2 Gold, of which my original digital only account of DA was "banned".
Long story short, someone "in the know" suggested that I could install DA in a different location perhaps and access the original 1.5 version that way, with a different windows user account if necessary. Since my hard drive has two partitions, one with XP64 and one with XP32 (as you all know I love having lots of RAM and 64bit allows almost 7.5GB vs. 3.5GB) I can just install it on the 32bit side and play that way but that is not the point.
Long winded as hell, sorry guys, but I wanted to give as much info as I could think of offhand.

[SoleSoul]

For what it's worth, I haven't seen that TA actually -needs- DA...back before I decided I wanted in on the beta I took it for a "test drive" so to speak, and I didn't have any problems running it from the folder it was in (nowhere near Program Files, let alone the GCII directory). Then again, this may have changed, as it was relatively early on in the betas.

You've provided a lot of information-which is good-but I can't seem to find the question in there, if there is one.

I do however have a relevant question, and I'm certain others are thinking it as well: Are you just looking to play the game or were you thinking of playing MV games as well? Obviously the latter becomes at best more complicated if not horrendously so, given your circumstances.

Additionally, your other post mentions your experiences with TA 1.96, which I would take to mean that you have it working. So, again...what was your question, so that we might be able to help?

[Mottikhan]

I have to admit confusion as well. Are you trying to play DA? I'm pretty sure that TA is a 32 bit program as are the other two iterations, so 2GB would be their limit.

[dystopic]

finally broke down and got impulse. it's been "preparing download" of my GC2 updates for several minutes now. my HDD activity light is going nuts, and i have no idea why since it doesn't seem to be downloading anything. i really hope i don't have 'issues' with it, because i don't want to wade through the impulse threads looking for a fix.

i already dislike this program a great deal.

[mumblefratz]

The only thing I know about it is that you need your .Net Framework up to date. If it isn't it can go into an infinite loop trying to update itself before it can update any of your games. I've also heard that if this gets screwed up you need to uninstall everything and start all over again starting with the .Net Framework.

But then I haven't installed Impulse and have no immediate plans to so I haven't been paying all that much attention. I'm pretty sure DA has been using it succesfully.

[dystopic]

it eventually did work but spit out a failed verification report of some sort. didn't seem to prevent the updates from all installing, though. i have .NET 3.5 as well as the SPs for 3.0 and 2.0. it was just an exceedingly unpleasant program to use, sluggish and slow to respond despite despite task manager showing pretty modest use of system resources.

i only installed it because i couldn't get TA 2.0 from SDC. i finally decided to update because i was bored and wanted to work on a few ship designs for seth's mod, but after that experience i lost interest.

if i get around to buying Sins, i'll probably seek a copy on disc.

[DethAdder]

If you have it set to auto archive, that process can take longer than the actual download and update. Besides that I haven't had any trouble with it. When I reinstalled everything I still never bothered to get a disc out for any of my games and just let them DL/update through Impulse.

Speaking of Sins, I just had a really fun game of that I finished up last night. Thought I was going to lose it for a while there . Thing is any game like Sins or TPM08 or any of those, you'll still need impulse to get it up to date even if bought on disc. Sins 1.1 did a lot for balancing and UI enhancement while adding a load of game setting options now.

Impulse is basically a milder form of Steam, the main difference being that you don't have to have Impulse running to play your games, just to update them. It has worked fine for me since about a month after it came out(when they added/changed the download mechanism).

[Ser Arris]

Since I was so foolish as to trust brad re this alleged update, I must proclaim:

Seth is King of the Internet! All hail his Wisdom and Foresight! I shall never doubt him again!!!!

[DethAdder]

Haha. I hate the way Brad keeps doing that. Seems to be his thing now to come in announce something in a week or two only to see it should of been a month or two.