The Longest Journey

I finally received my copy of this game in the mail today and before installing it I did my usual virus check on the first disk. To my dismay it found a virus on the disk. I was just wondering if anyone else who is now playing or has played this game has had a virus check turn up positive? Or am I the only one who runs virus checks on game CD's? I'm not sure how to handle this problem because I certainly don't want to install it now. I'm not sure if a read only CD can be disinfected. I'm checking with my antivirus provider but in the meantime wanted to see if anyone else had this problem.
RB

RB, I'm going to move this down to our Glitches forum, because it is more of a technical problem. Hopefully someone down there can advise you.

Just one question--did this game come from a retail store rather than a private owner? If so, I would take it back for an exchange...

Jenny,
I bought this game from a seller on Ebay.

i'd email the seller about it. a virus on the disk could mean it's a copy, not an original.

what do the disks look like? my TLJ disks are white with black numbers on them (for disks 1-4). any possibility you were sent a CD-R instead of an original?

-emily

Hmmmm just a thought...How many versions?distributers were there for TLJ.
My Discs have a Blue Cloudy background with Aprils Face and the Tower on them and labled Empire.
I have a Virus Prog that checks Everything including Discs and No Virus showed up....Have finished TLJ and am trying to decide what to play next.....have about 15 to choose from...not enough hours in the day.
" Walt " City of Lincoln U.K.

Thanks Emily and Walt for your response. It helps to have others with this game give their opinions. My first thought when I found the virus was that this was a copy. So I started to look around on the internet to see what retailers were selling. It seems there are two different boxes being sold. In regards the picture on the box. My disks are like Walts with a blue background, April's face and a tower. The Empire label is there also. This box has a UK designation on it so I assume it is the original release from the UK. The other box I found is of a tower in the background and April looking down. It says Tri Synergy on it, so it must be another release. That's all I can determine from a picture on the net. My game has the registration card with it and it certainly looks like an original but who knows? It was advertised as new on Ebay and when it came it was shrink wrapped.

in that case, can you try contacting the tech support for the company that made the game? any news from the seller?

i'd be willing to burn you a copy of my disk 1 (it wouldn't be illegal since it's technically a backup of your disk 1) but i don't know that our two versions would be compatible.

just curious... what virus has your virus checker found? is there any chance it's mistaking one of TLJ's files for a virus with a similar name? i don't know if that's possible or not...

-emily

My Tri-Synergy version was very plain - Black writing on white CD's. They had Longest Journey and Funcom printed on them and a big number (the number of the disk). In much smaller print they said ©Funcom 2000. I bought this version when the game was first released in the USA. There is a picture of the box at Gamestop here.

My UK version (published by Empire instead of Tri-Synergy) has the cover shown at Mobygamers.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,3/gameId,1439/
The CD's all had different pictures, one with Cortez, one with April, one with the big bad guy whose name I forget, and one with the Gribbler.

Usually you can tell if a CD has the label pasted on instead of printed or lacquered on, and if the underside has a tint to it. Some CDR's don't have the tinting, but most do.

Hi Jenny,
The one you describe at Mobygames is the one I have. It certainly looks like an original and says UK on the box. So it must be the release from UK and the other one must be the release from US. There is no tint on the disk. It all looks like it is professionally done.

Emily, I haven't tried to contact the seller because he has a bad attitude. I am going to call my antivirus provider tomorrow, I was out all day today. I want to know if this really is a virus or just a mistake. Your offer of a burned disk is great. It might make the difference. I want to hold on that until I talk to the virus people to see if we can figure out if it is a legitimate virus. I'll let you know if I need a backup copy. I know you said yours is the US release but nothing ventured, nothing gained, huh? It sure would be less costly then purchasing another game. RB

I'd be interested to see if you detected a virus on the burned disk. I suspect this is just a case of the antivirus giving a false alarm.

Did you know that CD1 of the UK version has two bad sectors as part of the copy protection? If the antivirus says the other 3 CD's are clean, I'll bet the bad sectors are what's upsetting the antivirus.

No, I didn't know that Jenny. What is the source of your information? I would like to read up on that. This is the first time I have encountered something like this. I will check out the other 3 and see if they are ok. Will let you know.
Thanks for that.
RB

i have the first version jenny mentioned -- the white CDs with the big black numbers on them.

never bothered running a virus check on them -- i'll try tonight and see if anything happens.

-emily

Fov, the white version is the USA version. I don't think it uses the same kind of copy protection as the UK version.

If you look at the undersides of the CD's from the UK version (at least this is true of my UK version) you may notice two concentric circles on CD1 where it appears there is no data written. You don't see them on the other UK CD's and I don't see them on any of the CD's of my USA version. When I used the checker.exe utility to check for bad sectors on the CD's, it reported two bad sectors on CD1.

I remember reading about these circles in the adventure newsgroup around the time the game came out. I forget who identified them as a form of copy protection. A search at Googlegroups found this
http://makeashorterlink.com/?U2E024A45

The messages from Scott Butler and Tragedy Trousers are of the greatest interest. I can't say for sure if this is the thread where I read about it, but the information is similar.

Emily, what did you find out when you ran a virus check on your CD? Like Jenny said though yours is the US release so it may be clean.

Jenny, I read the info from your link to Google groups and it is very interesting. However I don't recall them mentioning a virus, just the concentric rings. I do have those rings on my disk.

The virus I found is valid, check it out.
VBS/GaScript.E
It could very well be copy protection or it could be the real virus. I don't feel like taking any chances by installing it. I'm still going to keep looking for information. BTW the other three disks were clean.

RB

my virus check turned up clean.

-emily

There is no virus. But the antivirus may be detecting the bad sectors as some sort of virus.

Quote:

The virus I found is valid, check it out.
VBS/GaScript.E
It could very well be copy protection or it could be the real virus. I don't feel like taking any chances by installing it. I'm still going to keep looking for information. BTW the other three disks were clean.

You might try writing to Funcom about it.
http://www.longestjourney.com/contact/

Which antivirus program do you have?

I use Panda Platinum Antivirus. It is excellent. Check out this link, http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/overview.aspx?idvirus=36815

I did write to Funcom, waiting to see what they have to say.