Learning some useful information here, thanks for the IT experts for sharing their insights.
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We’ve been doing DRM for all of our products for the past 4-5 years with one exception: the Corsair.
I’d like to think that we’ve got it nailed down but yes, there’s always risk(s). Always. If you use Apple, Windows, just about anything these days, you’re at risk… I read an article about charging cables containing malware…
In the end though, we decided to implement the DRM because the Corsair was torrented so many times…
It’s super frustrating for us and for you, the honest ones… but, that’s why we have door keys, car keys and bank safes. (And DRM)…
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While I cannot fully agree with you, because with DRM you lock my car (I know it is just a licensed use, so still your property) I agree that it is bad for business and consumers. All the honest people lose because of people who see their opportunity to steal without repercussion.
Best of luck to you and I really hope all goes well with this. I’d hate to see my fears be realized. I see you on the other (market place) side when it is released there.
@Krazycolin - we did a mini road trip yesterday and had lots of time in the car, so I was discussing this whole debate about you guys with my wife. She is an IT security expert (does auditing for government) and she is one of the reasons I have decided to purchase the aircraft despite my initial strong stance against this. She said “good for them - meaning you guys, they are doing what they have to in order to protect themselves against a very real issue”… We have a very honest approach with each other and aren’t afraid to call each other out when we disagree. We talked about this at length and she said that most people have SO much DRM running with practically everything serious these days that to make stances about a megabyte here or there in a footprint is silly. Especially for a commercial product that takes time and resources to develop. So… it made me take a look back at my position and re-evaluate it. I think I owe you an apology. The product is absolutely worth it.
My one argument as someone who runs a business though, perhaps as a bit of consolation. Those who torrented Corsair weren’t buyers to begin with. I don’t necessarily look at it as “lost revenue”, because it wasn’t revenue to begin with. Realistically speaking, how many of those idiots would have actually bought it (or anything they can’t steal, for that matter)? But if they stole it and spread the word about how good it is, perhaps actual buyers would be tempted to invest and purchase. That is one (albeit limited and terrible) consolation I’d consider.
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Note for folks leery of adding a 3rd-party .exe onto their system to enforce DRM for a single vendor – I’m told that this plane will come to the in-game Marketplace later, in which case it’ll be able to rely on MSFS’s own built-in DRM system and should not need the extra executable for the Marketplace version. 
If there ends up being a “patch” released by Milviz, that would potentially add weapons/make it the Peacemaker variant, to the in-game marketplace version I’ll go that route.
MS does not allow weapons in the marketplace…
Thanks to your wife… and to you.
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I’m not aware of any payware addon I have in P3D that doesn’t have any sort of DRM. Usually we don’t notice itas it runs in DLLs but they aren’t possible in MSFS so developers have to find other ways. Milviz chose this more obvious way which should simply be accepted. There have been developers in P3D who are way more aggressive, others who deny the verification if a certain number of installations has taken place and you’ll have to go through their support portal for a reset. Others don’t even require a serial number but the files are watermarked secretly right from the download and you’ll get fu**ed if they find your files on the internet, there was a story about someone apparently been hacked and his Navigraph account was locked. They got it sorted after a LOT of effort by him but really, what Milviz do here is probably the easiest way for them AND US. We should appreciate it, they earn their money with their products and this money ensures further development. That simple.
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I have no issues with DRM at all. It’s just necessary these days. I have issues with a windows service being run ALWAYS, even while not even using the product. For me, that means a design that isn’t the way I want it to be done. I’ll therefore happily wait for a marketplace release.
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I wish we had a choice to run it as anything but a service, and that wasn’t as invasive as some other drm being used…
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Thanks. This sounds way better than everyone who does not like it is a pirate!
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Honestly, having the product now and seeing how it works, I am OK with it. It doesn’t affect my performance at all in either P3D or XP even though the service is still running. That was really my primary concern - I didn’t want the service to eat up resources that might potentially take them away from other things that may need them. In a way, this way the DRM is the most “seamless” - it’s there and give it a couple of weeks, I will forget about it and not even think about it. Thank you for considering and being aware of concerns. My concerns ended up being pretty much a non-issue.
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That’s the issue, not that Milviz want to include DRM in their product but why it needs to be a service that autostarts with windows rather than an application where the user is in control of when it run.
Have to agree with this and hence I bought the plane myself…Its a beauty.
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Also bought it. Lots of people getting unnecessarily upset over the drm checker non-issue.
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Because you just know that the forum would then be full of support calls why it wasn’t running because the user had forgotten to start the application.
It’s a simple service, you can set it to run manually and close when you don’t need it with a simple script. If you don’t know how to do that then you’re not in a position to criticise the drm in the first place.
Resource wise it’s also a non-issue, if it’s not being used it’ll be paged out, empty memory is wasted memory, i.e. if you’re worried about it auto-starting and ‘wasting’ resources then you don’t really know how things work.
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So will you be writing the guide explaining what a windows service is, how they work and how you control them for people for people who don’t understand windows ?
Just because it might cut down on some support calls doesn’t IMHO justify installing a permanently running Windows service to protect a single module in a flight.
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No, there’s no need because if you don’t know already you don’t really need to know.
People have numerous services already running they never spare a thought for, those making their RGB lights and fans change, those checking for gpu driver updates, those checking their browser is up to date etc.
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I have. Tried turning off Windows Defender, Right-click on .exe (installer) and Run as Admin. Same issue. Tried opening Services and manually launching Service. No dice.