Add a 'browse' option to the updater.

[Vire70]

I recently started playing Warband again and figured I'd update it to play some of the more recent mods (I'm on v1.134), so I downloaded the updater that says you can update from any version past 1.1 to the latest, thinking okay cool that will save me some time (90mb vs 587mb).

Download finishes, I run the program and simply tells me "You do not have Warband installed, please go download the full game from our website" (essentially). Well what is probably true is that I don't have Warband registry keys entered in Windows registry. But that really isn't important since I can run the game fine and even play multiplayer. Considering the registry keys only tell the updater where the game directory is... if you'd have included a basic browse button I could have updated immediately, and not have had to download another 600mb and install the game again for no reason.

I realize this might seem a bit whiny, especially considering that 600mb doesn't take me long anyway. But consider the people for whom that is not true. People in rural areas, or who have a generally bad internet connection. Lots of people have limited download capacity (at least here in Australia) as well which is a factor. All of which would be avoided if the updater adhered to pretty basic standards. Keep your automatic registry search, it is convenient, but add a 'browse to game directory' option if it can't find it in registry. This is something that almost all updaters already do for other games/programs and I was unpleasantly surprised to find it missing in this case.

[Caba`drin]

Download finishes, I run the program and simply tells me "You do not have Warband installed, please go download the full game from our website" (essentially). Well what is probably true is that I don't have Warband registry keys entered in Windows registry. But that really isn't important since I can run the game fine and even play multiplayer.

Doesn't sound fine. The game requires activation on the machine, so there should be a key stored in your registry. I don't think the devs have any reason to rework this to make the game not check for a serial and activation code in the registry.

[Vire70]

I think you'll find they're not stored the same way. I have bought the game and entered my key. The game clearly recognises the key; like I said multiplayer works without issues, which were I using an illegitimate copy (as you're clearly implying) would not be so. Windows just doesn't recognise that it's installed (which is probably because I cloned my OS/HD a little while back and had to reinstall most things). I've since reinstalled the game with the full download and used my key again and it works fine, I'm merely advocating more sense be used for the updater as well.

Assuming that the updater replaces the games .exe file, which is the victim of most 'cracks', I don't see why it would even matter if you could update a cracked copy of the game anyway - you can download the full version straight from the website. And if they had the ability to crack the latest version then it would matter not in the least whether they used the updater to get there or downloaded the full game. Your objection seems to be nonsense.