Files read by EQ Patcher?

[emmt33]

Has anyone tried using the Filemon utility from the sysinternals (http://www.sysinternals.net) web site? It provides the ability to monitor file system activity in real time.

Looking at the output when running the EQ patcher shows a lot of files being accessed (mostly read) by Everquest.exe that I wouldn't have expected, such as the Internet Explorer history files, and cookies?

This is all probably quite benign, but I'm intrigued... can anyone else check it out and see if they get the same thing

[iluvseq]

The new patcher (since Luclin) is linked to Internet Explorer. I'm not 100% certain of the details, but the new patcher is essentially a custom skinned IE window.

This would explain why it checks things like History and Cookies. I presume that this is simply the IE engine doing "normal" checks as it starts up.

-I Luv SEQ

[high_jeeves]

As has been posted over and over and over and over again:

ANY TIME you link to the winsock libraries, certain files are read. Any time you link to the iexplorer libraries, certain files are read. Any time you link to directx, certain files are read. Any time you link to directsound, certain files are read. Are we seeing a pattern yet?

These are all files that are necessary for configuration or initialization of certain libraries.

--Jeeves

[throx]

The patcher uses the WinInet APIs to patch Everquest. This is essentially a hook into IE and as a result it's not unexpected to see the cookies etc. be read.

Why they use WinInet is beyond me. It has to be the least friendly and most buggy API I know. It explains why you can't hit cancel and it crashing occasionally.

[datadog]

Why they use WinInet is beyond me

Just a thought.. maybe its so they can 'excuse' why they are perusing our browser cache and cookies? Valuable marketing info there for them im sure. Heck.. maybe they are checking to see if we are browsing this site!!! OMG!!

HELP.. THE PARANOIDS ARE AFTER ME!!!!

(saw that on a bumper sticker.. light blue VW bug being driven by a little old lady going 35 mph in the left lane on I-5 -- I still laugh when I think about it)

[RSB]

Sony's Lawers are not about to let the company risk suits to collect market data from our machines or catch cheaters.

For market data to be useful they would have to push some of that data back to the servers, something peope would catch

Microsoft got in big trouble when they used to send data back to microsoft as part as the "Update" feature in 98 and above. Now as most of you konw the whole determination of what you need to upgrade on you machine is done on your machine.

don't be paranoid, If you think they are out to get you just find a tall building and jump off....end all of our misseries.

RSB

[SurfAngel]

The patcher is XML/HTML based. IE is the default renderer on most machine. That's why IE is being accessed. Naturally, when IE runs, everything related got read (history, cookies, etc.)