Judi
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 04-07-2006
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Hope someone can help here, my computer died and now have a new one. I have a copy of TCB on my USB stick, is it just a matter of copying it directly into my program files folder in my new computer or does it have to be reinstalled from the DROD site? I have read other posts sort of about this problem but want to make absolutely sure I am doing the right thing. Have had a week of no DROD playing and its driving me nuts.
Thanks
Judi

Judi
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 04-07-2006
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By the way, I forgot to say, I am now running Windows Vista Ultimate, incase that makes a difference.

Judi

Jatopian
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Eek. I'm glad you posted that before someone misdirected you. Yeah, Vista definitely makes a difference here, but I don't know the specifics.

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 12-27-2007 05:10 AM]

Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster

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The easiest way to deal with the Vista complications is to not put the game into C:\Program Files. Personally, I keep a C:\Games directory that all my games go into (other applications still go into C:\Program Files).

If you're happy to do it that way, you can just copy it straight off the USB key. The very first time you run it, you'll get an error that it couldn't initialise the fonts and the game will exit. Run it again and it'll work fine.

If you want it back in C:\Program Files then you need to deal with the fact that Windows won't let you store the game data under C:\Program Files, and will move the data files into your own directory. Here's how I'd approach that way:
* Install TCB normally. You can get the installer from http://forum.caravelgames.com/downloads.php if you didn't keep a copy.
* Run TCB once and then quit it straight away.
* In Windows Explorer, browse to C:\Program Files\DROD - The City Beneath.
* In the menu bar of Windows Explorer, you should see a Compatibility Files button. Click that, and you should end up in a directory that starts with C:\Users.
* Paste your old TCB Data directory over the one you see there. Don't paste the files that sat above the Data directory in the main TCB directory.
That should do it.

Judi
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 17
Registered: 04-07-2006
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Thanks very much Tuttle, I have done as you did, the easiest way and have copied my game into the new directory.

Judi

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Tuttle wrote:
If you're happy to do it that way, you can just copy it straight off the USB key. The very first time you run it, you'll get an error that it couldn't initialise the fonts and the game will exit. Run it again and it'll work fine.

For future reference, I'm 99% sure that the reason this happens is because the Datapath.txt file is pointing to the old folder on the previous computer. If you delete that file before running DROD for the first time on the new computer then you won't get the error. (DROD creates a new Datapath.txt if the original is wrong or missing.)

____________________________
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halyavin
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 52
Registered: 02-20-2006
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I wonder why mrimer doesn't change the DROD so it do this automatically.

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
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halyavin wrote:
I wonder why mrimer doesn't change the DROD so it do this automatically.

Busy maybe?
This is probably a feature request already...

mrimer
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halyavin wrote:
I wonder why mrimer doesn't change the DROD so it do this automatically.

You mean why does DROD not automatically update the path and then keep running, instead of quitting with an error? I think that's a bug that never got fixed is all. Sure, someone should fix it. Hey, Gerry, would you check whether this still happens on Linux?

____________________________
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I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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Hm, yeah, seems there's an issue there. DROD does correctly regenerate DataPath.txt if the resource path is invalid, but not if just the writable data path is invalid (I get an error popup claiming DROD is already running in this case for some reason..). I'll fix it for the next patch.

I don't know if that's the cause of the issue here though, since both paths are the same in Windows, so if one path is invalid they both are. This is something that should perhaps get fixed for Vista, btw.. point the writable data path to C:\Users somewhere and avoid the whole C:\Program Files issue. The code to do this is already in there and used by the Linux and Mac ports, just need to enable it for Windows. This means that drod3_0.dat needs to be treated completely read-only like it is for Linux and Mac, though, but that's just an issue when localizing. Anyone done that yet?

schep
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trick wrote:
This means that drod3_0.dat needs to be treated completely read-only like it is for Linux and Mac, though, but that's just an issue when localizing.

Wouldn't localizing, even for built-in messages, go in the user's text.dat? I'm pretty sure DROD is able to read low MessageIDs from there. There are cases when you want to add to drod3_0.dat, but the Caravel people already have their own ways of doing that.

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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schep wrote:
Wouldn't localizing, even for built-in messages, go in the user's text.dat? I'm pretty sure DROD is able to read low MessageIDs from there. There are cases when you want to add to drod3_0.dat, but the Caravel people already have their own ways of doing that.

It'd be nice if it did, but no, -importTexts does write to drod3_0.dat for some reason. The Linux port currently gets around this by saving imported texts to ~/.caravel/drod-3_0/L10n and reimporting to ram on startup, which isn't a very good solution but at least it works while keeping drod3_0.dat read-only. I think the Mac port does something similar.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Hmm...I'm doubtful that text.dat would be useful at storing low numbered messageTexts in the current implementation. You'd have to verify for yourselves.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.