bailrs wrote:My question now becomes, why should I have to Download something to fix this problem...shouldn't the software that has been bought and paid for do it for me?
Firstly, as iWisdom has stated above, phpBB is free.
Secondly, bots are specifically designed to bypass the standard software (you would know this, if you completely read the first post in this topic). The solution, therefore, is to change the registration so that the bot becomes confused (once again, explained in the first post).
Finally, I took the time to write (and rewrite) the guide to help
you. The least you could do is not complain about the 10 minutes it would take you to implement the suggestions.