It's really simple people.....
Either we have some sort of invasive DRM built into the game or we have a digital distribution system configured such as Impulse that is able to verify your registration before patching. Since when has it become unreasonable in the eyes of the public that a company be allowed to protect it's IP in SOME WAY?
Up to and including patch 1.05 SINS was being gleefully used at lan-parties etc., shared between households/friends and in other locations by other parties most of which was probably far outside of the license agreement.
Even with (what I deemed to be) excessively lax IP control we had people on these forums flaunting their obvious disregard for EULA's etc. ("oh....in my country EULA's are illegal" or "if I can't read the EULA before I buy, then it's useless" etc. etc.) Kind of a slap in the face for an already overly generous developer wouldn't you say?
Impulse was supposed to have been used from the very beginning, but it wasn't ready on SINS-release so the DEVS allowed us in a very generous move to get patches for their IP with no control. Anyone and everyone had access to these patches. Before you complain about the Impulse-induced IP control, ask yourself with what level of protection would you be satisfied if it was your product we were discussing here?
I have no qualms about going on record saying the following:
1. All of my machines are running licensed, healthy copies of their respective OS's with consistently up-to-date-patch levels.
2. I haven't modified the OS's on said machines in any significant way. (ie. the OS on said machines is used to its fullest before anything else is ever installed)
3. I don't use "website guides" to disable OS functions which have been deemed "unecessary" by some gamer.
TIP: the descriptions posted for windows OS services are often not inclusive of ALL of the functions of said service. If you've begun disabling services based on those or "some gamer's" descriptions of the service please rethink your actions until you've actually educated yourself on the functions of same.
I believe, as a result of the above the following is true:
Save the few times the Impulse servers were having issues, I personally have never had one single issue with Impulse ever! Even when it first came out and I had to do some "work-arounds" (all of my home machines are also on an internal domain so certain things require a tad more administration 
)
I always have, and am still willing to keep helping people work through their issues. Please heed my advice and keep your OS's healthy, patched-up, and as un-modified as possible if you want to guarantee working third-party software. 
the Monk
