[fpc-pascal] Re: Editing resource of executable

[waldo kitty]

On 9/1/2012 02:56, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
> waldo kitty wrote:
>
>>> Of course, an even safer way would be to leave the executable alone and to put
>>> an early check in the startup code that a subsidiary key file existed, and for
>>> that key to include something that identified the machine or site on which the
>>> program was entitled to run.
>>
>> true... but as i recall, one of the goals of this capability was to not have
>> extra files laying about... i remember the days of dongles and never liked
>> them at all...
>
> Oh yes. And all those copy-protection systems that transferred a token from a
> floppy to a file on disc.

yup! plus there were also those floppy and some CD based ones that insisted on 
the floppy or CD being in the drive so they could check for a specific flaw or 
data in a specific place that couldn't normally be read by standard tools...

> But if the choice was between having an extra file or patching the executable,
> and if the patched executable failed on 5% of customer systems due to an OS or
> anti-virus check, I'd settle for the extra file and count myself lucky.

agreed... i run an old(er) firewall product that performs MD5 checksums on all 
executable files so that it can alert when a file has changed since its last 
execution... when i'm updating lazarus from SVN, i like that this firewall pops 
up a box alerting me when svn2inc, fpmake, and a few others change during the 
build... this lets me know, without having to go hunting, that my new stuff is 
up to date... or, at least i think it is... the process will hold everything 
until i acknowledge the file update... it gets in the way sometimes but more 
often than not, i'm happy to see its alerts...