Some Eve Online players found themselves floating aimlessly in the cold reaches of space today when they rebooted their computers after installing the game's most recent update.

Eager Windows XP gamers who downloaded the update via the game's Premium Trinity patch before 4:00 a.m. GMT today found that, in addition to adding a bunch of swell new features, the patch also removed their operating system's boot.ini file, effectively crippling the OS.

Here's the breakdown from Eve Online's official support page:

If you are only using the Classic client or installed the Premium client using the full Premium installer than you are not affected.

If you upgraded from the Classic client to the Premium client, using the content upgrade, then please read on.

Check the root directory of your hard drive and see if you have a boot.ini file, if so then you are not affected. The file is normally hidden so you need to click Tools : Folder Options : View and select "Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" to be able to see it.

You can also check for the presence of this file by clicking Start : Control Panel : System : Advanced : Startup and Recovery : Settings (third button down). Windows will alert you if the boot.ini file is missing.

According to the Eve web site, the issue has since been fixed, and only the earliest XP downloaders were affected. You can visit the Eve support site for more info on how to troubleshoot the problem.