The Ur-Quan Masters Home Page Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
December 14, 2024, 12:57:12 am
Home Help Search Login Register
News: Celebrating 30 years of Star Control 2 - The Ur-Quan Masters

+  The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum
|-+  The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release
| |-+  Technical Issues (Moderator: Death 999)
| | |-+  Force installer to use local files?
« previous next »
Pages: [1] Print
Author Topic: Force installer to use local files?  (Read 3664 times)
lhouk
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5



View Profile
Force installer to use local files?
« on: January 30, 2006, 06:35:18 pm »

I'm having problems installing uqm 0.4.  I've downloaded both uqm-0.4.0-win32-installer.exe and uqm-0.4.0-content.uqm, and I put them both in the same directory (C:\TEMP).  On a Win2K system, when I run the installer, I get a DOS command box, and it "goes to sleep".  On a WinXP system, when I run it, I also get a DOS command box, and the cursor starts bouncing all around inside the command box, as it too "goes to sleep". In neither case does the install ever do anything else, and I have to kill the DOS box.

Since I have the content file in the same directory, is there a command option to the installer that will force it to skip trying to access the network and immediately use the local file?  Something like "-local" or "/no_network"? Or is there just something I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance to all who respond!
Logged
meep-eep
Forum Admin
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 2847



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2006, 06:54:24 pm »

Just make sure that you run the installer with the directory containing the already downloaded packages as the current working directory. Running the installer in the Windows Explorer doesn't set the working directory, so you'll have to use the command prompt.
Logged

“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
Halleck
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 752


Personal Text


View Profile WWW
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2006, 07:57:39 pm »

How difficult would it be to script a small prompt that would allow users to specify where the installer should look for files? I've had limited experience with NSIS, but from what I've seen it shouldn't be all that hard...

It seems like a lot of users are getting needless headaches over this, and it should be fairly easy to remedy in the next version.
Logged


Currently working on: Going outside more
lhouk
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2006, 08:18:34 pm »

Just make sure that you run the installer with the directory containing the already downloaded packages as the current working directory. Running the installer in the Windows Explorer doesn't set the working directory, so you'll have to use the command prompt.

Thanks for the quick response! As you suggested, I opened a DOS command box, ran "CD \TEMP", and then ran "DIR" to make sure both the installer and the content files were there. Then I ran "UQM-0.4.0-WIN32-INSTALLER.EXE".  My cursor started jumping all around in the command box, but there was no other sign of life.  After a few minutes, I had to kill the DOS box. Do you have any other ideas? Again, thanks for taking the time to look at this for me.
Logged
meep-eep
Forum Admin
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 2847



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2006, 10:51:53 pm »

How difficult would it be to script a small prompt that would allow users to specify where the installer should look for files? I've had limited experience with NSIS, but from what I've seen it shouldn't be all that hard...

It seems like a lot of users are getting needless headaches over this, and it should be fairly easy to remedy in the next version.
I think something similar is already ready for the next release.


lhouk: I don't have any further ideas. If there's no output at all, it's nothing I've heard of before.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2006, 10:55:47 pm by meep-eep » Logged

“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
lhouk
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2006, 11:19:05 pm »

lhouk: I don't have any further ideas. If there's no output at all, it's nothing I've heard of before.

Hmm. Well, do you know of a site where I can download the game files themselves, rather than the installer and content archive? If I understand correctly, I should be able to just put the files in the appropriate directories, and it will run with no further configuration needed.  Does that sound doable?

Once more, thanks for your help. I'm really looking forward to playing this game...
Logged
meep-eep
Forum Admin
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 2847



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2006, 12:58:13 am »

Yes, it's doable, and quite easy. Put the files somewhere, like this:

bla\uqm.exe
bla\content\version
bla\content\packages\uqm-0.4.0-content.uqm
bla\content\packages\uqm-0.4.0-~update-20060114.0000.zip

The .exe file would be a snapshot from the most recent development version, which you could get from http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots. As it's newer, and the content has changed, the extra uqm content update file is needed. You can get it from the same page.

The file 'version' is currently only used so that the game can recognise the content. It only has to exist, the content does not matter at the moment.

Additional packages (voice, 3do music) you can put in the same dir as the content package.

Logged

“When Juffo-Wup is complete
when at last there is no Void, no Non
when the Creators return
then we can finally rest.”
lhouk
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2006, 07:00:56 pm »

Yes, it's doable, and quite easy. Put the files somewhere, like this:

bla\uqm.exe
bla\content\version
bla\content\packages\uqm-0.4.0-content.uqm
bla\content\packages\uqm-0.4.0-~update-20060114.0000.zip

The .exe file would be a snapshot from the most recent development version, which you could get from http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots. As it's newer, and the content has changed, the extra uqm content update file is needed. You can get it from the same page.

I downloaded the current .exe and content update file, set up the directory structure following your example, crossed my fingers, and ran uqm.exe. I got the following error message:

Code:
The application has failed to start because SDL.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

Since I couldn't reinstall, I did a quick Google search. I found and downloaded SDL.dll, and moved it to the same directory as uqm.exe. I ran uqm.exe again, and got a new error message:

Code:
The procedure entry point SDL_Has3DNow could not be located in the dynamic link library SDL.dll.

I suspect I don't have the most recent SDL.dll, but I tried downloading it from three or four different sites, all with the same result.  Can I impose on you once more to point me to a link for a working SDL.dll (or tell me what I am doing wrong)? And by the way, thanks again for your help and patience with me.
Logged
Halleck
Enlightened
*****
Offline Offline

Gender: Male
Posts: 752


Personal Text


View Profile WWW
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2006, 01:32:12 am »

From the INSTALL file:
Quote
SDL v1.2
   The Simple Direct-Media Layer
   A fairly good multiplatform low level graphics library.
   Homepage: www.libsdl.org
   Download: http://www.libsdl.org/download-1.2.php
   Debian package: libsdl1.2-dev (and various runtime debs)

SDL_image
   An image loading library used with SDL.
   Homepage: http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/
   Download: http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/release/
   Debian packages: libsdl-image1.2 libsdl-image1.2-dev
   
OpenAL (Win32 only)
   A cross-platform spatialized audio library.
   Homepage: http://www.openal.org/
   SDK download: http://developer.creative.com/articles/article.asp?cat=1&sbcat=31&aid=45&file=OpenALSDK.zip

Ogg Vorbis
   Audio codec used for music and speech.
   Homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/index.html
   Download:
       For Windows:
         SDK download: http://www.vorbis.com/files/1.0/windows/OggVorbis-win32sdk-1.0.zip
       For Linux:
         http://www.vorbis.com/download_unix.psp
         download libogg and libvorbis.

Zlib v1.2
   Data compression / decompression library
   Homepage: http://www.gzip.org/zlib/
   Download:
       For Windows:
      http://www.gzip.org/zlib/ (mid-page 'zlib compiled DLL')
Those sites should probably have the neccessary runtime libraries for you. If not, I could send you mine (i forget exactly where I got them).
« Last Edit: February 01, 2006, 01:34:00 am by Halleck » Logged


Currently working on: Going outside more
lhouk
Zebranky food
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2006, 10:42:37 pm »

From the INSTALL file:
...
Those sites should probably have the neccessary runtime libraries for you. If not, I could send you mine (i forget exactly where I got them).

Thanks, Halleck! I followed your instructions, and it works flawlessly. My top-level directory now contains:

Code:
Volume in drive D is Local Disk
 Volume Serial Number is A4C1-D11C

 Directory of D:\programs\uqm

02/01/2006  03:33 PM    <DIR>          .
02/01/2006  03:33 PM    <DIR>          ..
01/31/2006  11:31 AM    <DIR>          content
02/01/2006  03:11 PM    <DIR>          include
04/05/2001  06:24 PM           169,443 jpeg.dll
02/01/2006  03:11 PM    <DIR>          lib
04/05/2001  06:24 PM            94,720 libpng1.dll
07/19/2002  07:34 AM            49,152 ogg.dll
02/01/2006  03:10 PM    <DIR>          oggvorbis-win32sdk-1.0
08/28/2005  01:07 AM           237,568 SDL.dll
04/05/2001  06:24 PM            18,944 SDL_image.dll
02/01/2006  03:33 PM           103,699 stderr.txt
01/14/2006  12:06 AM         3,203,267 uqm.exe
07/19/2002  07:34 AM           974,848 vorbis.dll
07/19/2002  07:35 AM            28,672 vorbisfile.dll
04/05/2001  06:24 PM            53,760 zlib.dll
07/20/2005  11:48 AM            59,904 zlib1.dll
              11 File(s)      4,993,977 bytes
               6 Dir(s)   7,625,588,736 bytes free

and it wasn't enough just to have the .DLLs, in case anyone else reads this in the future. I also had to have the various subdirectories, which were created when I unzipped the various .ZIP files into my top-level directory.

Again, a big thank you to both Halleck and Meep-Eep for their kind and patient assistance!

Leslie
Logged
Michael Martin
Core Team
*Smell* controller
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 387



View Profile
Re: Force installer to use local files?
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2006, 07:44:03 pm »

It does sound like NSIS itself wasn't running properly on lhouk's system.

For the record, the following claims should be true for both the 0.4 and new 0.5 installers:
  • It explicitly asks (right after asking for the install directory) from where it should read local packages.  It will only attempt to download a file if it needs it, it's not in the package directory, and it's not already installed.
  • The package directory defaults to the directory the installer EXE is in, which is not necessarily the same as the working directory.  If it isn't, that's a bug in NSIS.  (Windows Explorer has been mentioned, but unless it behaves differently when you go through "My Computer", the defaults are presented correctly from it on my machine.  NSIS also has different variables for referring to the working directory and the executable's directory.)
  • No external package is touched or checked until you've fully configured your install and committed to begin the process, so if you don't get to that point, it's not the external packages' fault.
Logged
Pages: [1] Print 
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!