Launcher Updates

Well, this post is about what has been happening lately, and I thought I'd post a quick update.


Launcher PRO V3.0 has been out for a few days now. Got some report that High DPI isn't working, so I'll definitely fix that in the next build.

I still receive a few activation code requests, so I'll probably create a video guide. The thing is, once you got access to my site, you can do everything yourself without my help. Input the request code, generate activation code, download, and activate Launcher. That is it.

Some browser apparently don't show the code immediately, like IE/Chrome/FF does. If this happens to you, wait for at least 15 minutes, go back to the page, and you should see it, ready for download.

Launcher Premium - as stated in my other post, is no longer supported and I stopped generating activation codes for it. It is what it is.

Using JRE x64 -  I almost always use x64 now a days. It's really sweet on RAM allocation and usage. To use 64-bit JRE, download the 64-bit version from Oracle and install it. Find the location of the app where the folder "jre" is. Create a new folder named "jre_x64" and copy all the cotents of JRE/JDK to this folder. NOTE: Ensure there is no environment settings for _java_options. Some apps automatically set this, but it's more trouble than it's worth. It's a bad advise that is widely used.

Response Time - My email responses are delayed by two days. I'm trying to catch up as fast as I can but with the holidays and family around, they take priority over anything else.

Fake Receipts - well, this is really disappointing. I'm getting tons of them now, where as before, I see one or two here and there. I'm genuinely surprised and stumped with this trend. I mean WHY??? I seriously don't know how to deal with this and it's taking me a lot of time verifying.

I have a degree in digital forensic...just kidding, I'm just a guy who knows his way around MS Paint ;). Believe me, I know how to detect manipulated images. If you're paying some guy to create fake receipts for you, you should check your priorities.


Lastly...Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!! Enjoy your family and the holiday. See you next year, especially if you don't drink and drive.

Launcher PRO 3.0 - Available this weekend

All-New Launcher PRO 3.0 - Available this weekend. See www.fxxtokenmaster.com for details...

E-Sys Launcher 2.0 - End of Life

Launcher 2.0 Premium and PRO has reached end-of-life phase. No more updates, no more fixes.

The past couple of months, I've spent significant amount of time modifying Launcher PRO, when I should have never bothered. I just wasted numerous sleepless nights for naught. It has been proven, once again, that an enterprising entity would go to such great lengths to earn a buck, so much so, that they shamelessly stole and reuse my code. What's sad is that some people actually support these individuals.

I wrote Launcher Premium for enthusiasts, for personal-use, to learn coding, not for someone to resell it. It was free, but people manage to sell it. I'm not going to let these individuals earn money at my expense.

And precisely for this reason, that I am terminating Launcher 2.0. There will be no update to Launcher Premium. There will never be  Launcher Premium 3.0. It's done, it's over.

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.9.11 Build 306

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.9.11  is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.9.11 Build 305
====================

- Fixed activation on freshly installed Launcher
- Added feature to exclude Knowledge Bases (KisDB)
- Minor bug fixes

V2.9.11 added the capability to exclude some selected knowledge bases. Without this feature, all KB databases are loaded, hogging and wasting memory resources. Resources which 32-bit JRE doesn't have a lot of. It doesn't matter whether you have 2GB or 16GB, 32-bit JRE can only allocate so much. This is one of the driving factor why I introduced the use of 64-bit JRE.

This scenario poses problems to some users, specially does who have the X cars, because BDC_Body needs significant amount of memory. And while CAF for these complex ECUs may be loaded successfully, JRE often times, is left with not enough memory to process other stuff, like mapped CAFDs.

In the preceding image, I selected all I's, K's, R's, and S(G)-series, because I don't have any car belonging to those series, certainly not Rolls-Royce. The selected options will be prevent from loading. When I selected these series, they no longer show up as target in connection window, and the corresponding KIS DBs are no longer loaded. These save JRE both some processing time and memory.

Before:

Java (used/javamem): 117,964,784 # Java (full): 147,849,216 # Java (max): 1,073,741,824 #

After:

Java (used/javamem): 77,492,896 # Java (full): 93,323,264 # Java (max): 1,073,741,824 #

It's not a whole lot, but when you put into perspective how much RAM can 32-bit JRE use per process, it's certainly significant.

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.9.6 Build 255

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.9.6 is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.9.6 Build 255
====================

- Added support for E-Sys 3.31.0

- Migrated to full 64-bit architecture

- Added "Check for Updated Version"

- Minor Bug Fixes

First of the few online features. Check for new update on startup. If an update is available, the icon will change its color to blue. You can then click on the Update icon to open a browser pointing to the update location. 

This version is full 64-bit architecture. I'm not sure how many are still using 32-bit version of Windows, but the new components I added forced me to select either 32-bit or 64-bit, there's no flexibility. I chose 64-bit.

The V1 EST Migration tool was meant to only migrate previously extended active tokens. People have complained and they wanted to extend an already expired token. I made it so a token can be extended IF, and only IF, the new end date is still a future date. Typically, this is 1.5 additional years. SO, if your token expired 19 months ago, it can't be any more expired than that.

  

NOTE: I just came back from a short travel. I'll start catching up on my emails.

NOTE: Please Do NOT request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.9.4 Build 218

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.9.4 is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.9.4 Build 218
====================

- Added EST Migration tool for older tokens

- Fixed FA Activation hanging

- Fixed minor certificate/EST issue

- Minor UI tweak

As mentioned in my last blog, extended tokens with expired original one need to be migrated as I would need to compromise a lot to support it. Migration is quick, and very similar to the EST Extender tool. You will need the original tokens. This means that, if your token have expired and you didn't get to extend it, this is your chance to reactivate it. It must have expired within the last 12 months, though.

NOTE: Please Do NOT request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Some Launcher V2.9+ Notes

These past few days/weeks have been specially hectic and chaotic. I've held off issuing tokens and codes since I was working on something. And what I thought and planned to be a seamless, painless upgrade, turned out to be anything but. V2.9.0 was a disaster,V2.9.1 wasn't any better, V2.9.2 was barely acceptable and V2.9.3 showed a glimmer of hope.

It took a friend from the other side of the world to get it back to an acceptable level. Working but not perfect.

I'd like to put out some guidelines for existing users:

•  Those who now use the new EST format, you should be OK with any V2.9+ version
•  Those who have the older format, still valid, non-extended tokens, upgrade now and extend your tokens using V2.9.3
• Those who own an already extended tokens, please do one of the following:

                - If your old token is still valid today, please revert to the original token and upgrade to V2.9.3, then extend your token.
                - If your old token is already expired, but is already extended, stay on V2.8.1 for now. The upcoming version will have a token migration tool which will help you move to V2.9+.


I tried to accommodate all scenarios to make it all seamless. However, supporting extended tokens requires me to relax security a bit. One that I'm not willing to compromise with. So, I opted to come up with a migration tool instead.


I promise you an easier, more stable, future versions coming, both PRO and Premium alike. It is taking me a while to bring Premium up to par with the PRO, but it is what it is for a very good reason.


And....Happy days are coming!!!

Some BMW gods smiled upon us. I have to look more into it and see what exactly is entailed, but it does look like your shiny new G-series, and those on newest iStep, is about to be a bit happier. Launchers have been on V59.4 for quite a while now. It's about time to move to V61 at the very least, V62 maybe, if we get ever so lucky...Happy days, happy days.

Update: TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.9.3

UPDATE: Launcher PRO V2.9.3 is now available

- Fixed minor certificate/EST issue

Thanks to botho for providing the environment for troubleshooting. It was a tremendous help.

UPDATE: Launcher PRO V2.9.2 is now available

- Fixed minor certificate/EST issue

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.9.0 is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.9.0 Build 173
====================

- Increased allowed memory allocation for 64-bit JRE up to 8GB.

- Added another way of using 64-bit JRE by using "jre_x64" for folder name. This way, 32-bit JRE can remain untouched.

- Main window will become 65% transparent if a child window is open. This enhances the contrast and visibility of child windows. (See image below)

- Minor UI tweaks

- Minor security changes

- Removed support for 3.24 and 3.26. Minimum supported version is 3.27

Figure 1: Semi-Transparent main window

Majority of the work done on this version is not visible. Initial support (not available yet) for online activation has been laid out and will be enhanced further in future releases. These changes will trickle down to Premium as well.

I encourage anyone who's using PRO to upgrade to this version. This version is a little bit more stable and secure.

NOTE: Please do NOT request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Update: TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.8.1 and NCD / CAFD Tool V0.5.2

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.8.1 is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.8.1 Build 155
====================
- Added support for E-Sys 3.30.1

NOTE 1: While it support 3.29, I find 3.29 is too buggy for any useful purposes. I tried fixing some of the stuff, but I gave up and retracted my changes. There's just too many to fix. 3.30 appears to be stable but I just started using it a couple of days ago, I haven't had the chance to fully test it.

If you are not planning on using 3.30 or 3.30.1, there's no reason to update to this version. 

NOTE 2: I'm holding off on the Premium update for now as I'm contemplating a few changes. As much as I would like to release it, people just won't stop trying to exploit it for their own advantage.

I'm not always around to generate activation code, so I need to device something more autonomous. I just came back and I have zero idea at the moment.

NCD / CAFD Too V0.5.2 Build 203

====================

- Minor bug fixes

NOTE: Please do NOT request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Update: TokenMaster's Launcher PRO 2.8.0 and NCD / CAFD Tool V0.5.1

TokenMaster's Launcher PRO V2.8.0 is now available.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.8.0 Build 153
====================
- Added support for E-Sys 3.29
- Added support for E-Sys 3.30

NOTE 1: While it support 3.29, I find 3.29 is too buggy for any useful purposes. I tried fixing some of the stuff, but I gave up and retracted my changes. There's just too many to fix. 3.30 appears to be stable but I just started using it a couple of days ago, I haven't had the chance to fully test it.

If you are not planning on using 3.30, there's no reason to update to this version. 

NOTE 2: I'm holding off on the Premium update for now as I'm contemplating a few changes. As much as I would like to release it, people just won't stop trying to exploit it for their own advantage.

I'm not always around to generate activation code, so I need to device something more autonomous. I just came back and I have zero idea at the moment.

NCD / CAFD Too V0.5.1 Build 201

====================

- Minor bug fixes

NOTE: Please do NOT request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Update: TokenMaster's Launcher 2.7.1 Premium and PRO

TokenMaster's Launcher V2.7.1 Premium and PRO are now out.

Change log

Launcher PRO V2.7.1 Build 148
====================
- Fixed "Unknown Error" when retrieving cheat codes
- Improved Launcher-E-Sys communication
- Reduced memory usage
- "Code Default Values" button renamed to "DO NOT USE!!!" ("VERWENDEN SIE KEINE!!!")
- Minor bug fix


NOTE: PRO 2.7.0 Build 142  was Not released

Launcher Premium V2.7.1 Build 135

====================

- Fixed "Unknown Error" when retrieving cheat codes

- Simplified Token generation. PIN is the only required information now.

- Improved Launcher-E-Sys communication 

NOTE: Please do not request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Update: Launcher Premium 2.7.0 and NCD / CAFD Tool V0.5.0

Launcher 2.7.0 Premium and NCD / CAFD Tool 0.5.0 Alpha

Change Log:

Launcher Premium 2.7.0 Build 132
- Added configurable Cheat Codes selection
- "Code Default Values" button renamed to "DO NOT USE!!!" ("VERWENDEN SIE KEINE!!!")
- Windows XP is supported again
- Minor bug fix



Cheat Code selection on Startup.

This feature should have been included in the first release. I've discuss this a long time ago here: Code Default Values

NCD / CAFD Tool 0.5.0 Build 198 Alpha
- Minor bug fix


NOTE: Please do not request via the comment section. I do not monitor the comments actively. Email me at fxxtokenmaster_at_gmail for any question.

Small updates, workaround,...etc.

I've been having short trips lately, so I started lagging behind my emails again. I know it is very frustrating to not receive response within the day, and I'm sorry for that, but I really don't have a choice. I don't bring my tools and apps with me, so I'm not able to provide a useful reply.

I have some send an email and several follow ups within the same day for several days. What I do, is open my email and start at the oldest unread ones and work my way up and process a small set up to whatever I can accommodate on that day. If you send several follow ups, what it does is push your email farther and farther down the queue. Again, I apologize. It's my fault but not much I can do either.

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FDL Cheat Codes bug. The latest release of Launchers includes new FDL cheat code for Korea. However, this introduced a bug as well, where you'll see "Unknown Error" when trying to fetch codes. It's caused by this file. You can remove the XML as a workaround, until I get around to fixing it.

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Some people have been using Premium and keep advancing date until it no longer works. Then send me an email asking me to fix it. That was put in there for a reason and don't expect help from me if you'd do that. Premium is for those people who code their own car. If you have the need to change the date to code another car, then it's not for you. This has been happening a lot to a point where I find it annoying.

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But there's more...

There's a few people asking for activation codes. That's not a problem in itself and I'd give one when I get to it, but when the same people ask for multiple activation codes, that's when I have issues with it. Premium is not for those people.

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And more...

Some E-Bay sellers are selling the Launcher. Well, I can't stop you from buying free software.

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And finally...

There's something that has been happening lately that I find very troubling, that I have to write about it. Some people have been sending me fake receipts and recycled receipts. I have received quite a lot, more than 20 of those. So many that a pattern has emerged, and showed a few particular demographics are behind it. I mean, come on now. How jaded and twisted can one be to resort to that thing?  It's just very disheartening and makes me lose interest. :(