How can I distinguish between an official or unofficial patch?

How can I distinguish between an official or unofficial patch? - Man in Black and Brown Camouflage Shirt Drinking From a Can

I recently dug out my CD for Championship Manager: Season 97/98 but I am missing the official patch (version 2.93).

The patch was originally available from the game developer but they have since split from the original franchise (i.e. now developing Football Manager). I cannot see the patch on their website.

I have checked several websites but have encountered one of these problems:

  1. When finding links to download the 2.93 patch from historic fan sites the patch is no longer available (no sure way of downloading the patch as it was)
  2. Obscure "CM2 97/97" patches are turning up as unofficial update for teams/players mainly regarding approximately the 2011/12 season (this will vary depending on the site)
  3. Several abandonware sites are giving me copies of the full game complete with additional editors/tools etc - and I cannot confirm whether this is a patched copy of the game

What I want is the official 2.93 patch, which I believe was a zip file or an exe named something like "patchzip". The file was pretty small, maybe less than 10MB. It patches the CM exe file, possibly the editor, and updates around 3 game data files.

In the absence of an explicit download to the official patch/update is there a sure-fire way of determining if an installation has:

  1. been patched with the official update?
  2. not seen any custom edits (new players added beyond the "vanilla" update?

Specifically - anything in-game or examination of game files (readme's, timestamps etc).

championship-manager-season-97-98




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Quick Answer about "How can I distinguish between an official or unofficial patch?"

  • Look for a patch zip or folder.
  • The game has post-patch features.
  • Check database file properties.
  • Check the editor.
  • Check key teams in-game.


    • Is the unofficial oblivion patch needed?

    They are not included, so you need them if you want the most fixes possible. However, if you want the most vanilla experience, they are not necessary.

    What is unofficial Fallout 4 patch?

    A comprehensive bugfixing mod for Fallout 4. The goal of the Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch (aka UFO4P) is to eventually fix every bug with Fallout 4 not officially resolved by the developers to the limits of the Creation Kit and community-developed tools, in one easy-to-install package.

    Should I install unofficial fallout patch?

    It is not necessary, but it will probably smooth out the ride a little bit. Everyone who can use it probably should.

    How do patches work for games?

    Normally they use a third-party binary diff system to distribute patches to the game data. The executables are typically small enough to be trivially distributed entirely. Most modern games have hundreds of megs of game data (mostly textures, models, levels data etc). These require patching quite often.


    Unofficial Patch Basic or Plus?



    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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