What is the name of the supposed spyware program you found?

I've seen that too. I think it's one of their object desktop applets that's required for stardock and their games to work. Of course, I could be wrong and Frogboy may be trying to see what you are downloading when you aren't playing GalCiv II.

All it is is a small application that helps speed up SDC startup and other stardock things. It is not spyware, and if you want to disable it simply uncheck the two boxes in SDC options that refer to MCP.

ProcessLibrary entry on SDMCP, if you don't want to believe me:

Security Risk (0-5): 0
Spyware: No
Adware No
Virus: No
Trojan: No

whoops...

As for the program the problem with it is that it runs while you are doing things other than Galciv and it causes a performance hit to your system. It could be spyware, or it could be something stardock thinks they need to provide better service. Who knows? I am not going to assume it's evil, all I know is it is eating up a bit of my precious performance from my gaming machine. All gamers should be supsicious of those strange little background programs you see from time to time and be quick about fixing them. They usually look very harmless, like a little clock running in the corner, or some little acronym on your processes list and usually they are not evil or trying to spy on you, but they end up slowing down your computer just the same.

I remember back when gamers didn't have to worry about spyware, adware etc. But now every seasoned gamer has a copy of adaware and spybot in order to optimize.

If it doesn't bother you and you don't care about every extra ounce of computer performance for gaming then don't worry about it. But if you are a gaming freak like me and every Frame Per Second counts, then you might want to look into it. Or if you just resent companies that load up our computers with garbage, spam, ads etc.

Stupid topic title. Man if you don't know what a spyware really is you are just a complete computer illiterate... Ever heard of taskbar applications? Go download kaaza to see what spywares really are and what they will do to your PC.

Attila you have questions like this maybe email stardock or jump on the IRC server if you are impatient. But posting like you ahve only shows your ignorance and I'm sure quite a few people will be offended. The fact that stardock hasn't removed your trollish post kinda points to teh fact that they are an open company.

Get your facts straight. Visit the IRC server. Send them an email and try being polite.

There were similar problems with gamespy back in the day. Illegal? No. Incredibly annoying? Yes. What you want to do is delete the downloaded version of the game you got from stardock clean up whatever is left behind and then install the retail version of the game. Then when a patch comes out, try your best to find and download it from a source other than stardock.

If you're still skeptical run a good benchmark program like 3Dmark http://www.futuremark.com
Run the test after you download all the junk from stardock and watch the performance drop. Thats what I did. Then remove it clean up defrag etc. Install the retail version and like magic your back to your original benchmark score.

It doens't matter if you call it spyware or not, just make sure you get rid of it.

...Or, you know, just turn it off in SDCentral. For me it was off by default, actually.

Well, since I downloaded the whole game and the patch from Stardock, and I *don't* have a SDMCP or other SD* process running on my system, I call shenanigans on your whole story.

I used Stardock Central to download, install, and patch the game. I just did CTRL-ALT-DELETE to check for anything SDC-related running in the background and didn't find anything. I just loaded both the game and Stardock Central and when I closed them both out I still saw nothing SDC-related running the background.

I do notice I have "MCP SmartStartup" disabled. I'm guessing that it's exactly what it sounds like... you activate it and sdmcp.exe gets started when you boot your computer to make starting up the actual program faster. This is not spyware, and no different than a gazillion other programs that offer similar options. If you don't like it, turn it off. Sheesh.

Peace & Luv, Liz

OK, so we've gone through several discernible stages here:

Thread title: "Stardock Spyware is slowing down my computer"

Now, I'm no expert in how to interpret English sentences (oh, wait, I am), but this would seem to imply that the program in question may fairly be categorized as "spyware."

Second post: indicates that, unless you buy the retail version of the game, you can't install patches without also installing stardock's "sneaky little program," again identified as "spyware."

So far, so admirably consistent. Now the potential for confusion erupts...

Tenth post: "It could be spyware, or it could be something stardock thinks they need to provide better service. Who knows? I am not going to assume it's evil..."

Then, the sixteenth post: "It doens't matter if you call it spyware or not, just make sure you get rid of it."

Ah, but it does matter if it's spyware or not. Even the most "hardcore" gamer would be more complacent about a program that caused a performance hit than he would be about a performance-damaging program that also reported his private data without his consent -- i.e., "spyware." "Spyware" is simply the wrong term for an innocuous program. If this is difficult to grasp, imagine this scene:

Doctor: "You have cancer."
Patient: "WHAT?!"
Doctor: "Well, technically, it's a hangnail. It doesn't matter whether you call it 'cancer' or not, it'll hurt and you should get it fixed."

Finally, I'll note that you can still patch GCII, with the downloaded copy, without risking any background processes that might impact your FPS. If you click the "Downloads" section of this website, you will be taken to a page that has, inter alia, a link to the latest patch for GCII. You don't need to go through Stardock Central and risk background processes. Or, Barthon noted, Stardock Central actually has the option of turning it off. So everybody wins.

EDIT: I need to learn to type faster.