When someone posts a thread with a problem, I try and help. Don't worry, I didn't take it personally but I do find it strange that you're determined to write it off.

I did yesterday. I'm very quick to dismiss unnecessary things that get in my way just 'cause. I know there are workarounds and solutions for almost everything, but I value functionality.

Prepare to be caught, tied up, opened up and emptied for as much blood as possible without killing you, be allowed to heal and regenerate the blood... then opened up, emptied, and healed... again and again and again...

I'll remember it the next time I download a game from GG.

Wow, just read back what I wrote and I really screwed that post up. "quite a but if time"? XD
I wasn't suggesting you carry on buying things from them (I don't buy from them any more). I was just saying don't throw away what you bought, the steps I listed are a one time thing and then you don't have to deal with GG any more.

I'll probably do that in the future or just trade something for a Steam key of L.A. Noire. At least I know that will work.

You must have an old copy of LA Noire as all recent sales of R* games on GamersGate have been Steam keys. Unfortunately, it seems R* didn't want to give Steam keys to previous purchases though =/

Looks like I have a Steam key after all. It just doesn't work. Maybe it's a Social Club code.

Is there any way to force or trick Origin or Uplay to install on a secondary HD?

You can decide where stuff installs in the preferences.

Glad to see I'm not the only one. If you don't use Steam or Origin there is little reason to go there any more. GG used to have the best deals, good tech support... even had a big fan base on various gaming forums. Now they're a Steam key dispensary. Nice move.

It's sad to say, but they're probably swimming in money. The easy road is the one most choose, that goes for producers as well as consumers.

Same here. I wasn't really following the website for a while, mostly because of the lack of new drm-free games. My impression was that after Paradox decided to use Steam because of their heavy DLC--output, Gamersgate kind of lost it's main base and they needed to change. Selling steam-keys is cheaper and easier, so here we go.

I miss the good old days where I would edit the dos system file to like
LOADHIGH DOSKEY.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=C:\CDROM\DRIVER.SYS
FILESHIGH=40
BUFFERSHIGH=40
etc etc

Yes to the first paragraph, no to the second one.

When I just started working, I've had problems with reports disappearing edits in Office documents and couldn't figure out the cause. Turned out people... don't save them. They open the document from Outlook and do stuff, and then it just disappears into the ether via Temp. They don't even know things are saved on a hard drive, for them a PC is just Outlook, other Office stuff, the internets, and a pretty picture with launch icons on it (but they know how to change pictures, so that's something I guess?).

iDevices are no better, though. The boss told me to make it so that he could listen to a dictation record on his iPad. I converted the record to an iPad-listenable format and then hit the competely unexpected snag, in that I couldn't transfer the file to the device. I did what I always do when internets are plentiful and data cables are unavailable: uploaded it to a file storage and tried to download it. However, the fanciful interactive Download button didn't react to tapping. I mentally cursed web designers who put prettiness above usability and tried another file storage, and then a third one with direct links. No reaction either. So I looked up on the internets what the problem with the iPad could be -- could it be defective?

And the answer, of course, is that it's defective by design. iDevices don't have an accessible file system and don't support generic file operations. But! there's an "app" which allows to downloading files to its internal cache and then tries feeding them to various software. The app costs money, of course. But all that "plug in, copy to disk" stuff? Not there. Even worse than that, the iDevices as a class have existed for 7 years now, and that was the first time I've heard about the problem. I mean, there are iOS vs Android forum wars, and "doesn't have a fucking file system" isn't used as an argument to any appreciable extent. And that shit sells. That was the day I lost my faith in humanity, for realz.

It's the same for me too. My colleagues use their computers for ~85% of their daily work, which is comprised of Outlook and two very large custom databases. They seem to navigate these things quite well. But one morning I arrived in the office a few hours late and nothing had been done because the desktop shortcut to one of the databases had disappeared and no-one had any idea what to do! It was trivial to look in "Program Files\Blah Blah" and create a new shortcut from the executable, but in their eyes it may as well have been evil sorcery :S

Of course, Apple wouldn't call it this, but you're right. It's defective by design. In my opinion, jailbreaking is a must. It's the only way to access the filesystem, terminal, SSH, etc.
As to why it isn't argued in iOS vs Android forums? I don't know! It's very important to me and I'm surprised it's overlooked so often.