Why do we disable SteamFix every time we install a new version of the patch?

[Albeoris]

@Tirlititi , do you remember why we disable SteamFix and enable it again during the patch installation?

[Tirlititi]

I don't know exactly how the Windows hook works, but for what I understood, you cannot replace the FF9_Launcher.exe by an updated version when that hook is enabled. At the time, I tried to do multiple things, like replacing both the normal launcher and FF9_Launcher.fix with no success.

In any case, the administrator rights for the patcher are not required / asked to people who install Memoria for the first time or who never enabled "Fix Steam Overlay" (which requires administrator rights anyways). So in my opinion, it's a non-issue and certainly not worth making 2 different versions of the patcher. People who don't trust the patcher will likely not trust the launcher either; if somehow they previously trusted the launcher but don't want to trust the patcher afterwards, they can just disable the fix from the launcher and then run the patcher: it won't ask for administrator rights anymore.

[Albeoris]

Hm. In fact, the main point is that if there is already a redirect to FF9_Launcher.fix in the registry, you don’t need to touch FF9_Launcher.exe at all, just replace FF9_Launcher.fix with the newest version.

I'm thinking in this direction because I'm a little tired of the constant messages from UAC 2 times per launch of the patcher. :D

Anyway, got it, thank you! :)

P.S. Regarding the question how is it works: when Windows run the .exe file it check the registry key SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\{FILE_NAME.exe}. If the key is exists and Debugger property is set, the value from Debugger will be used as a new path to .exe file instead of original one. So we'll run FF9_Launcher.fix instead of FF9_Launcher.exe. But any read/write operations to FF9_Launcher.exe will open for read/write FF9_Launcher.exe, so Steam integrity check will be passed successfully.

So, if you do not run FF9_Launcher.exe you must not get any trouble from the hook.