Ah nice, thanks for the info.

Ok, there was another update for Might and Magic VII, as announced.
And the installer for the Might and Magic 6 pack was also updated, both without a change in the version number.

Edit: Oh sorry I was wrong, the version number of Might and Magic VII is now changed. 2.0.0.14->2.0.0.15

So has anyone confirmed if the silent updates without a version number change were to fix the compatibility settings uninstall bug? I'd like to know before redownloading these games again. Thanks in advance.

Is there a description somewhere how exactly this works? From you earlier description I understood that if the installation files are in a different place than where they were originally downloaded into (e.g. in D:/Install/GOG_games/ instead of C:/Install/GOG_games/), it will redownload all games, even if they were already up to date, when you point the downloader client to that new directory where the installation files currently are?

Does it start updating them right away without asking you, or does it notify you first which need an update, and does it require you to click on the dowload links before it updates the files?

And when it does the update, does it remove any files in the target directories that it doesn't recognize? Or does it leave all files (either ones you've put there yourself, or older installation files) untouched, and just adds the newer versions there?

For instance, when GOG removed some soundtrack from some game's extras, would the downloader have removed that soundtrack file from there without asking the user?

No. The downloader has a list of files and hashes that it checks against the existing in the directory. If a file isn't on the list, it ignores it, no matter if it's called folder.jpg, soundtrack_01.mp3 or patch.2.0.6.exe

can't help , didn't get any answer to my ticket
this is ridiculious , the notification isn't working in this case , the only solution to notice the change is to redownload a game via the downloader >.<.

I really wish they'd implement an API like I asked here.

Being able to get a list of games on my account and a list of files for each game along with their size and checksum would be extremely useful in making sure you're up to date.

Being able to download would be a bonus but I'd even pass on that if only I could get the metadata.

I couldn't find the downloader's documentation either.
I didn't do that much experimentation.
But I seem to have been unclear about one thing. I did not point the downloader to the new directory, because what I want is a different hierarchy, not simply a different root (which is all the downloader supports). I just moved the game and didn't tell the downloader. It would have worked if the downloader had kept an internal log of downloaded files, but apparently it did not.
Downloaded MM8 and it is identical to the one I downloaded three months ago.

This is the second time Gabelvampir has reported that the downloader has identified a change, but when I downloaded through the browser got the same file. Is the problem with the downloader's change identification or is it that people not using the downloader get different files than those that do?

As said above , the easy way to see if the file has changed , check the certificate expiration date.

Secondly :

no i d/l some games via the downloder & some via the briowser : so far always got a different checksum.

because i don't "trust" the downloader at 100% , i always make a checksum file of the installer for each game.

I just downloaded the MM8 installer by browser, it is the same file the GOG Downloader produced but a different file then the one I had yesterday (I have a backup of the installers lying around at the moment).
I do not have the slightest idea what is different on your end, maybe not all cloud servers have the same file version or a GOG backend problem like that.

Edit: I checked by doing a MD5 hash of all 3 files.

It's a good idea, but I now have second thoughts about allowing the downloader direct access to my backups. I'd rather have it download the updates it identifies to some temp place and allow me to compare and copy.
Do you know when you downloaded the file you had yesterday?

January 23rd 2013. I could also tell you the time but that should not be important :-P

So, gog tech support hate themselves and want not only to answer "why doesn't it work?" questions, but also to have the user fill in a form with useless version numbers and hashes of installers. Brilliant.

Oh by the way there were many more installers the Downloader wanted to re-download, I'll post a list later this evening when I have sorted everything out. Because of the "resume" feature of the Downloader and GOG not changing version numbers I get many broken files I have to re-download.