I don't know if anyone else had had this happen but the vista fix appears to be a no disk fix too. I just did a turn of cmbb and cmak without the disk in the computer. at first I thought I did have the right disk in but when I went to switch I realized I had another disk entirely. I definitely think it was worth the $10 now.
And does your PBEM now work against opponents who don't have the patch? Ther was an issue with that in the beginning....
I don't know if any of my opponents have the fix but I haven't had problems yet. the no cd fix though doesn't seem to be working on my laptop. I'm still trying to figure out why not.
It is a no CD version, but not a "no need to licence" version. You need to e:Licence it. You can e:Licence on two machines (you and a mate, you and your laptop) but BE SURE to UNlicence it and not just delete/uninstall it, otherwise you will 'lose a life'. (BF can refresh a 'life' for you, but it might cost $5).
If you can't be bothered with al that nonsense (although to be fair, it's quite a gentle form of DRM), there are plenty of 1.03 no CD patches around, and I don't think there's any version checking. There isn't between 1.03 and 1.04 anyway. Both 1.03 and 1.04 AK and 1.03 BB run fine on my Vista 64bit machine with a Sapphire ATI Radeon graphics card.
Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not advocating piracy, only to use a no CD patch for convenience to use ones purchase, not to use something one hasn't bought. I have e:Licensed my 1.04, btw.