KDX and Gameranger

Gameranger forces me to quit KDX, what can I do?

UPDATE 11 May 04: Chris Wells has started a GameRanger petition.

UPDATE 6 Jun 05: Some people are reporting that the author of Gameranger has modified Gameranger specifically to get around the following "Disguise KDX" program. So "Disguise KDX" may not work anymore.

Scott Kevill, the author of a program called "Gameranger", has apparently decided to use an underhanded tactic against KDX, which he presumably views as a threat or a competitor. When Gameranger is running, it looks at what other programs are running on the computer, and if it finds KDX, it refuses to connect to game servers until the user quits KDX.

Please note that there is NO technical reason for this behavior. Gameranger and KDX are perfectly able to coexist on the same computer, and indeed they did so until Mr Kevill released a new version of Gameranger which he specifically programmed to check for the presence of KDX. He is simply trying to force you to stop using KDX.

Furthermore, normal operation can be restored if you pay $50 to upgrade to the "premium" version of Gameranger. Thus Mr Kevill is trying to extort money from you. If you don't pay him, he won't let you use KDX, despite the fact that KDX is not his product. A number of our customers have expressed outrage at this.

In order to neutralize Mr Kevill's extortion/blackmail, Haxial has written a program which disguises KDX so that it cannot be recognized by Gameranger. For example, it renames KDX to a random name, and makes other changes in order to prevent Gameranger from recognizing it.

NOTE: DisguiseKDX only works for MacOS X. If you are still using MacOS 9, unfortunately we don't know of a solution for you.

Here are instructions for using DisguiseKDX:

1. Download DisguiseKDX.
   
   
2. Decompress the DisguiseKDX stuffit archive and put it in the same folder as KDX Client or Server.
   
   
3. The KDX program file must be named exactly "KDXClient" or "KDXServer" (NO ".app"), which is the default name when KDX is downloaded. If you didn't rename it, then it should already be the correct name.
   
   
4. Open the DisguiseKDX program. You will need to enter your password, and then KDX will launch. The password is required because KDX will be run as the root user.
   
   
5. In future, always use the DisguiseKDX program to launch KDX rather than clicking on the KDX program itself.
   
   
6. Gameranger must be running as a different user other than root. Unless you changed the setup of your computer, this will already be how it runs.
   
   
7. In future, if you want to reset DisguiseKDX in order to install a new version of KDX, or to move KDX to a different location on your hard disk, then you can trash the "DisguiseKDX.stg" file in the same folder as the DisguiseKDX program.

GRCircumvent -- An alternative to DisguiseKDX

Also note that the username/password fields on GRCircumvent are for the user under which you want to run the KDX program, NOT the current user.