{"id":185,"date":"2010-03-30T23:47:50","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T12:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/?p=185"},"modified":"2010-03-31T01:51:16","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T14:51:16","slug":"ea-download-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/2010\/03\/ea-download-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"EA Download Manager\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u2026 is fuck\u00ading awful. Under any oth\u00ader name it would be recog\u00adnised as mal\u00adware. How I hate&nbsp;thee:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When unin\u00adstalling, it deletes the install files for games you\u2019ve down\u00adloaded. We\u2019ve lost over 40gb worth of down\u00adloaded games because of this and the next&nbsp;point.<\/li>\n<li>When updat\u00ading to a new ver\u00adsion (auto\u00admat\u00adic!) it deletes the installed ver\u00adsion and any down\u00adloaded game installers.<\/li>\n<li>The new ver\u00adsion requires Adobe Air to be installed, not explain\u00ading why, or whether it\u2019s option\u00adal, or indeed even what it is. First time through I can\u00adcelled the Air installer, and the EA Down\u00adload Man\u00adag\u00ader installer stopped. Of course it had delet\u00aded the exist\u00ading EA Down\u00adload Man\u00adag\u00ader install com\u00adplete\u00adly, leav\u00ading me with nothing.<\/li>\n<li>The EA site has no vis\u00adi\u00adble link to down\u00adload it. I had to look at an old invoice from EA (that only arrived after they\u2019d charged me twice, I might add) to find a link. Search\u00ading for \u201cEA down\u00adload man\u00adag\u00ader\u201d gives me a use\u00adful <em>look\u00ading<\/em> link that goes nowhere.<\/li>\n<li>The EA site con\u00adtains no link to view your pro\u00adfile or account information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, a piece of soft\u00adware that needs to be installed, installs oth\u00ader soft\u00adware with\u00adout inform\u00ading the user of what or why, deletes unre\u00adlat\u00aded impor\u00adtant files arbi\u00adtrar\u00adi\u00adly upon updat\u00ading or unin\u00adstalling, and starts by default with Win\u00addows? <strong>Mal\u00adware<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adden\u00addum:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe appli\u00adca\u00adtion failed to ini\u00adtial\u00adize prop\u00ader\u00adly. Please ensure you are not attempt\u00ading to run the appli\u00adca\u00adtion on mul\u00adti\u00adple Win\u00addows accounts simul\u00adta\u00adne\u00adous\u00adly. If the prob\u00adlem still per\u00adsists, please rein\u00adstall the application.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>It fails to start from the icon it put on the desk\u00adtop. I ini\u00adtial\u00adly thought, \u201cOh, it\u2019s because I man\u00adgled the Air installer or some\u00adthing\u201d, so I unin\u00adstalled every\u00adthing. It still does\u00adn\u2019t&nbsp;work.<\/li>\n<li>I go explor\u00ading the EADM install fold\u00ader. From the looks of it, the app is a bas\u00adtard mess of QT, Adobe Air (and thus webkit), a serv\u00ader, a com\u00admand-line app, XML and inex\u00adplic\u00ada\u00adbly an SWF. What the fuck? Did the pro\u00adgram\u00adming team just cher\u00adry pick bits of soft\u00adware and duct tape them togeth\u00ader? I can under\u00adstand depen\u00adden\u00adcies, but this list is absurd.<\/li>\n<li>I try EADownloadManager.exe. Does\u00adn\u2019t work. I try EACoreServer.exe. Does\u00adn\u2019t do any\u00adthing. I try EACoreCLI.exe. An icon appears in the tray. Yippee!<\/li>\n<li>\u201c<em>Where do you want to save your down\u00adloaded game installers?<\/em>\u201d Can\u2019t type in the direc\u00adto\u00adry text box. Ok. I think, \u201c<em>let\u2019s use that stu\u00adpid direct\u00adly your last ver\u00adsion cre\u00adat\u00aded, c:\\programdata<\/em>.\u201d I select it. The soft\u00adware changes it to \u201cC:\\ProgramData\\EA Core\\cache\\EADM\\{ myemail@address }\u201d. Why ask if you\u2019re going to insert ran\u00addom crap anyway?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An hour lat\u00ader I\u2019m final\u00adly down\u00adload\u00ading the game they\u2019re still charg\u00ading retail prices for even though they\u2019ve cut out all the mid\u00addle\u00admen involved in the retail process. Great work&nbsp;guys!<\/p>\n<p>BTW, bud\u00adding pro\u00adgram\u00admers, don\u2019t ever cre\u00adate hor\u00adri\u00adble short\u00adcut tar\u00adgets like \u2018<em>C:\\Program Files\\Electronic Arts\\EADownloadManager\\EACoreCLI.exe\u201d \u2011eadcommand:?cmd=agent_task_add&amp;taskId=TASK_LAUNCH_VAULT&amp;allowDuplicates=1<\/em>\u2032. If you need to do this on an end-user sys\u00adtem, your pro\u00adgram is bad\u00adly writ\u00adten and you\u2019re expos\u00ading too much of the inner work\u00adings to out\u00adsider influ\u00adence. Also, pass\u00ading amper\u00adsand-delim\u00adit\u00aded URLs with start\u00adup instruc\u00adtions to a native appli\u00adca\u00adtion is dis\u00adgust\u00ading and a hack. At least use real com\u00admand line para\u00adme\u00adters, avail\u00adable since the 1970s. Thanks for rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion\u00adis\u00ading appli\u00adca\u00adtion devel\u00adop\u00adment&nbsp;Air!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2026 is fuck\u00ading awful. Under any oth\u00ader name it would be recog\u00adnised as mal\u00adware. How I hate&nbsp;thee: When unin\u00adstalling, it deletes the install files for games you\u2019ve down\u00adloaded. We\u2019ve lost over 40gb worth of down\u00adloaded games because of this and the next&nbsp;point. When updat\u00ading to a new ver\u00adsion (auto\u00admat\u00adic!) it deletes the installed ver\u00adsion&nbsp;and&nbsp;[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xhva.net\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}