TheJoker; You're looking in the wrong place. The anti-piracy scheme is on the installation CD itself. Have you noted the procedure that an update runs? Specifically, in there being a 3rd, finalization pass? The same thing happens when you install Vue...only the finalization files are hidden on the CD. And the full finalization run is masked by the splash screen. After getting Vue and hearing about the scheme, I checked out the 4 different rips to be found in the jungles of Usenet. =ALL= of them had exactly the same instability issues. Namely, within 30 seconds of moving a primitive, or switching a window too quickly, you CTD'ed. And these were installed next to my stable copy of Vue4. If you don't run the install from the CD, you do not get a stable version; the warez kiddies have been screaming about this for a couple of years. And since none of the naughty children have tricked it out, I have to assume that it is simply too much trouble... Multiple file offsets can be that way, for example...