Originally posted by battlezoby:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

We'll see soon enough, I wouldn't trust them tho, just block updates manually to avoid the bricking patch.

Suggestions? Firewall? Do you know which ports?

How is this still not common knowledge?
Put this in steam.cfg in Steam install folder to prevent updates.
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate = disable

Originally posted by tyl0413:

We'll see soon enough, I wouldn't trust them tho, just block updates manually to avoid the bricking patch.

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have one thing in common: their software updates are hated by many people.

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Suggestions? Firewall? Do you know which ports?

How is this still not common knowledge?
Put this in steam.cfg in Steam install folder to prevent updates.
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate = disable

Thanks.

For clarification, the "install folder" is the folder that contains steam.exe , steam_client.exe , uninstall.exe and bunch of other files, right?

(Other people might want to know/confirm too, and I originally dsylexically misread your message as implying that a steam.cfg would already be there.)

Thanks again.

Originally posted by Kirby_Krabs:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

We'll see soon enough, I wouldn't trust them tho, just block updates manually to avoid the bricking patch.

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have one thing in common: their software updates are hated by many people.

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have something in common, they acquired effective monopoly power, don't give a damn about their customers, and yet, somehow amazingly, they aren't hated even 1% as much as they should be.

A difference though, if that you can turn to past lawsuites to see how Microsoft got Monopoly power and maintained it illegally,(*), How the F did Steam get it in the first place?

Steam doesn't offer any service that company with a 500th of their income couldn't offer, and yet, I don't know of any public information as to how the heck they got it.

* - A history lessen will show you that IBM was about to be broken up for abuse of monopoly power, so they just channeled billions of dollars into Microsoft to to create a new Monopoly that wasn't being sued (yet.) Microsoft bought MS-Dos for $65,000 and licensed it to IBM for billions, pretty straight-forward transfer of money.

BTW... [Disclaimer: below is a bit of a different topic, so I might decide to move it elsewhere later.]

The video card specification for P.C. video cards used to be standardized - there was several video card manufactorers, but you didn't need Direct-X or any special drivers because, again, the specification was standardized (and still is.) Unfortinately, that ended with VGA - 640 x 480 and below.

But given the extreme power of PC's and even their low end graphics, there's no reason whatsoever for leaving all the simpler graphics un-standardized, but they do - You can't
even do 800x600 without a special driver - I can only speak based on speculation, common
sense, and "pretty sure there's no good excuse", but they really should have standardized
at least (big "at least") all 2D video modes at every resolution MINIMUM so you don't need per-card drivers. But instead, we have an industry where Microsoft has too much control over the driver interface, and the manufactorers are forced to rely on Microsoft more than they should have to.

But they didn't, and that leads to relying on Microsoft-Windows drivers (made by MS or the
manufactorer) when, in practice, there should just a standard (perhaps a flexible one that
says "You can do A, B, or C...", but to the best of my knowledge, there still isn't. The
implications are pretty complicated, but if not for that, one thing we'd probably see is a
lot more seperate OS's other than just flavors of Linuxes too few competitors.

Install Windows XP to take an insight how Windows 7 will become. It is a matte rof time until no any software will work on Windows 7 anymore.. just like for XP ..

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

How is this still not common knowledge?
Put this in steam.cfg in Steam install folder to prevent updates.
BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate = disable

Thanks.

For clarification, the "install folder" is the folder that contains steam.exe , steam_client.exe , uninstall.exe and bunch of other files, right?

(Other people might want to know/confirm too, and I originally dsylexically misread your message as implying that a steam.cfg would already be there.)

Thanks again.

Yes, if it doesn't exist you need to create it.

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Originally posted by Kirby_Krabs:

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have one thing in common: their software updates are hated by many people.

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have something in common, they acquired effective monopoly power, don't give a damn about their customers, and yet, somehow amazingly, they aren't hated even 1% as much as they should be.

A difference though, if that you can turn to past lawsuites to see how Microsoft got power(*), How the F did Steam get it?

Steam doesn't offer any service that company with a 500th of their income couldn't offer, and yet, I don't know of any public information as to how the heck they got it.[/b]

* - A history lessen will show you that IBM was about to be broken up for abuse of monopoly power, so they just channeled billions of dollars into Microsoft to to create a Monopoly that wasn't being sued (yet.) Microsoft bought MS-Dos for $65,000 and licensed it to IBM for billions, pretty straight-forward transfer of money.

Nobody else even tried thats how.
Everyone else can't even figure out how to make a basic download service, meanwhile Steam got more actually useful features built in than every console and a bunch of third party PC software combined would have and it usually works pretty well.

Originally posted by N3tRunn3r:

Install Windows XP to take an insight how Windows 7 will become. It is a matte rof time until no any software will work on Windows 7 anymore.. just like for XP ..

Except XP works, funny thing is XP will continue being useful for much longer than anything newer because it still came out before the always online age.
With the exception of digital games most XP software did not mandate online activation so anything that works right now will continue until the end of times meanwhile current systems will be basically useless in a decade because basically everything requires some sort of connection now, including Linux, the old repos will be taken down, everything you didn't install yet will be pretty much gone, for no good reason and people will find ways to defend it.

Nobody else even tried thats how.
Everyone else can't even figure out how to make a basic download service, meanwhile Steam got more actually useful features built in than every console and a bunch of third party PC software combined would have and it usually works pretty well.

Wow. Just wow. Truely amazing.

Nobody else tried to put in the features that buttloads of developers put in for themselves?

Hard to prove someone posted a list of 20, mostly obscure companies that did the sort
of thing, because I didn't save a copy, and he allegedly took it down after Steam banned
him for having it... so let pretend that's fake because I can't prove otherwise.

I'll assume Epic Games and Gog are fake too, and a few programmers
couldn't get together and just do it.

But here the thing - we don't even NEED those sorts of companies. Any semi-competant
dev can just do all the stuff for themselves, and novice webmaster can just list them.
If the dev's give 5% royalties for putting ads on webssites, webmaster would be even
more motivated, and the dev's would save on not paying the 30% Steam cut.

Some dev's, I mean really really rare - probably don't exist - but hypothetical dev's - might
even want to not p-off their own customers and continue to support XP etcetera, because
all they have to do to do that is pretty much nothing. (Just continue to pay the same server
bill that hosts their other stuff.)

Originally posted by battlezoby:

How the F did Steam get it in the first place?

Oh wow, it's sooo hard to figure out how Steam became the most popular choice with PC gamers, gee, I wonder how that happened. Totally not because they earned their loyal user base, noo.

It's not a monopoly either because there's other alternatives like the Epic Games Store, and other software distributors never bothered to develop their program beyond selling their own games.

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Originally posted by N3tRunn3r:

Install Windows XP to take an insight how Windows 7 will become. It is a matte rof time until no any software will work on Windows 7 anymore.. just like for XP ..

Except XP works, funny thing is XP will continue being useful for much longer than anything newer because it still came out before the always online age.
With the exception of digital games most XP software did not mandate online activation so anything that works right now will continue until the end of times meanwhile current systems will be basically useless in a decade because basically everything requires some sort of connection now, including Linux, the old repos will be taken down, everything you didn't install yet will be pretty much gone, for no good reason and people will find ways to defend it.

Dear tyl0413:

Two questions:

a) How did you manage to make an intelligent post like that when it seems like virtually noone else can?

b) Why don't other people post stuff like that?

Originally posted by 尺．し工几ᗪヨ尺:

Originally posted by battlezoby:

How the F did Steam get it in the first place?

Oh wow, it's sooo hard to figure out how Steam became the most popular choice with PC gamers, gee, I wonder how that happened. Totally not because they earned their loyal user base, noo.

It's not a monopoly either because there's other alternatives like the Epic Games Store, and other software distributors never bothered to develop their program beyond selling their own games.

Using the US govenment's definition: Roughly 70% of the markplace, which is pretty darn close to the best estimates I've seen for Steam. But in practice, their share is just too damn big to make any objective sense whatsoever. For argument's sake, I'll leave "maybe people like it the best", but that doesn't explain why such an obscene number of developers turn over 30% of THE REVENUE as well as the control of their own product over to Steam. Between Microsoft and Steam, the percent is huge and makes no sense.

Heck, Cardhunter used to offer their game on Kongregate, Steam and their own website. Their forums had colored text and a PREVIEW MODE FOR THE FORUMS, and bunch
of other cool stuff....

How is it that a game developer run pretty much by one guy with a less than dozen people working for him can have a PREVIEW FUNCTION on their forums, but Steam can't?!?!

Answer: Steam is a monopoly (or "near monopoly") with no meaningful competition and just doesn't give a damn. Like when they got 100,000's of complaints about their revamped library page, but Steam really didn't gave a darn.

BTW.... The antitrust suite that ordered Microsoft to be split up was made in part because Microsoft had a VITAL MONOPOLY of at least 70% of the PC OS market. When I first got
to know Steam, I really wanted to at least try to get Fed's on their case EXCEPT... BIG EXCEPT... I can't convince myself that "PC gaming" is a vital monopoly so those laws don't apply to them. (Legally speaking, the fact that Steam makes you sign the TOS / EUA
etcetera BEOFRE YOU BUY is also a huge difference between them and Microsoft as
far as Steam not breaking the really big laws [although the later has probably changed
over the past could of decades... back in 1998-ish, there were only 3 out 50 U.S.
States that would recognize "shrink wrap licenses" like Microsoft's.)

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Except XP works, funny thing is XP will continue being useful for much longer than anything newer because it still came out before the always online age.
With the exception of digital games most XP software did not mandate online activation so anything that works right now will continue until the end of times meanwhile current systems will be basically useless in a decade because basically everything requires some sort of connection now, including Linux, the old repos will be taken down, everything you didn't install yet will be pretty much gone, for no good reason and people will find ways to defend it.

Dear tyl0413:

Two questions:

a) How did you manage to make an intelligent post like that when it seems like virtually noone else can?

b) Why don't other people post stuff like that?

Yeah it's sad how few people actually get stuff or care.
Most people don't see past "it doesn't affect me so who cares".
Way worse than that is how many come out in defense of multi-billion dollar corporations anti-consumer decisions nowdays.
It's hard to believe there really are this many shills out there but at the end of the day that's what it all comes down to, if people put up with it, don't care or even straight up like it, why not.
Remember when everyone was worried about planned obsolescence? Now no one talks about it because it's been the norm for years. Not only no one cares to mention it as a negative they infact defend as something positive and necessary if it ever does get brought up.

To answer the question directly I think it's because taking such unpopular positions is inconvenient and risky, people get mad, you get disliked to the bottom of the page, banned, you lose connections and so on.
Example I actually do like Valve and many of the things they do, Steam itself, their hardware and so on I also criticize their bad decisions like this one, like the redesigned Steam client, like the way they handle their live service games or their partners and the moderators, and for that I've been banned more times than I can recall even though the overwhelming majority of the times I say something about them it's probably something positive.
Or I like Linux, very much is the only way forward but I will criticize it it's users and developers when deserved. Like I see in these Windows 7 threads incredibly often Linux users telling W7 users to switch for example, which for gaming lets be honest is basically impossible without a Vulkan GPU which W7 era hardware users are likely running.
What is the answer of many Linux users? Telling W7 users to "just buy a Vulkan GPU". I think the issue is fairly obvious with that statement, literally the exact same as Windows 11 shills telling those with incompatible machines to just replace them.
But since I call out this hypocrisy instead of looking over it just because I do happen to like Linux oh look at that, I've just made the large portion of the modern Linux community my enemy just because I apply my standards equally and won't let obvious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ excuses like that fly just because it would be a "win for Linux adoption".
I've seen many Linux users, supposed champions of computing freedom, defend a big corporation, which they'd usually pretend to be against, Valve in this case revoking the access of those who don't follow their arbitrarily changing requirements to continue using products they paid for. In other cases this would for obvious reasons be called out in Linux circles like when Prime Video strengthened their DRM, locking out Linux browsers but just because this time it's happening to Windows 7, which is an easy target due to lower userbase and already being demolished by Windows 10 users, Microsoft themselves and pretty much everyone else dismissing it as outdated trash making the attack even easier and since in their delusions Linux users genuinely believe there's a high chance W7 users will switch to Linux they'll defend Valve's decision just because they see it as a driver for Linux adoption not even realizing Valve can cut Linux the same way one day when they deem it to be a failed experiment.

evil?

Originally posted by battlezoby:

Ah yes, Windows and Steam have something in common, they acquired effective monopoly power, don't give a damn about their customers, and yet, somehow amazingly, they aren't hated even 1% as much as they should be.

A difference though, if that you can turn to past lawsuites to see how Microsoft got Monopoly power and maintained it illegally,(*), How the F did Steam get it in the first place?

Steam doesn't offer any service that company with a 500th of their income couldn't offer, and yet, I don't know of any public information as to how the heck they got it.

* - A history lessen will show you that IBM was about to be broken up for abuse of monopoly power, so they just channeled billions of dollars into Microsoft to to create a new Monopoly that wasn't being sued (yet.) Microsoft bought MS-Dos for $65,000 and licensed it to IBM for billions, pretty straight-forward transfer of money.

BTW... [Disclaimer: below is a bit of a different topic, so I might decide to move it elsewhere later.]

The video card specification for P.C. video cards used to be standardized - there was several video card manufactorers, but you didn't need Direct-X or any special drivers because, again, the specification was standardized (and still is.) Unfortinately, that ended with VGA - 640 x 480 and below.

But given the extreme power of PC's and even their low end graphics, there's no reason whatsoever for leaving all the simpler graphics un-standardized, but they do - You can't
even do 800x600 without a special driver - I can only speak based on speculation, common
sense, and "pretty sure there's no good excuse", but they really should have standardized
at least (big "at least") all 2D video modes at every resolution MINIMUM so you don't need per-card drivers. But instead, we have an industry where Microsoft has too much control over the driver interface, and the manufactorers are forced to rely on Microsoft more than they should have to.

But they didn't, and that leads to relying on Microsoft-Windows drivers (made by MS or the
manufactorer) when, in practice, there should just a standard (perhaps a flexible one that
says "You can do A, B, or C...", but to the best of my knowledge, there still isn't. The
implications are pretty complicated, but if not for that, one thing we'd probably see is a
lot more seperate OS's other than just flavors of Linuxes too few competitors.

At least Steam doesn't actually try to monopolize PC gaming and offers many community features that most people seem to overlook (its main rival during early years was GFWL , which was trash af). The only company that tries to monopolize is Epic Games with third party exclusives without any significant improvement to the store.