If anyone ever thinks about trying "Return to Krondor" again...
Christian Klassen
Some hours ago I installed that old game, Return to Krondor (released
around 1998, I think) to see whether it would still be fun to play.
Well, after a short while it turned out that this wasn't the case for me (I
can't bear the static screens with the arbitrary camera positions), so I
decided to uninstall it again.
But the game also installed those obnoxious "Sierra Utilities" without
asking, which claimed their right to be prominently visible in the Windows
Programs menu and refused to be uninstalled if any Sierra product was also
installed on the computer.
So I uninstalled the game first, and after that uninstalled those Sierra
Utilities as well, wondering a little why the uninstall process for the
latter took so long.
Well it turns out, that the other games on my harddrive (Morrowind and Half
Life 2) have been deleted as well by this marvelous feat of software
engineering.
Gee thanks, Sierra...
Knight37
Yeah, Sierra boned several installs for their games. Let me guess, you
decided to install the game to something other than the default
directory, which would have probably been "Sierra" something or other,
right? Then the utility which was designed to delete "Sierra" and the
directories under it instead wiped out the directory you installed it
to. This kind of shit is probably one reason they're just a company in
name only now.
That's the bad thing about trying an older game, you never know what
kind of bug you're going to encounter and no one remembers these
nightmare problems like deleting your hard drive. Be thankful you
didn't just install the game to your root directory or it would have
nailed your entire drive. Hell, even original Half-Life, which was a
Sierra release originally, has this unintstaller bug. I remember Pool
of Radiance Ruins of Myth Dranor (aka POR2) has a similar bug, not by
Sierra.
There may be other old games that have similar installer bugs. Anyway,
this is why I do not use game uninstallers for anything released prior
to 2002. I just delete the game's directory and maybe if I'm feeling
particularly Martha Stewart, use Registrar Lite to delete all the
related entries in the registry.
Sorry that you got screwed by an old game. :(
Knight37
Christian Klassen
> Yeah, Sierra boned several installs for their games. Let me guess, you
> decided to install the game to something other than the default
> directory, which would have probably been "Sierra" something or other,
> right? Then the utility which was designed to delete "Sierra" and the
> directories under it instead wiped out the directory you installed it
> to. This kind of shit is probably one reason they're just a company in
> name only now.
>
Yes, you're right, I install games (thankfully, if I look at this mess) in
a directory on a separate partition.
When installing, I changed the directory to D:\games\RtK, but the installer
insisted on there being a directory called SIERRA, so it altered the path
to D:\games\RtK\SIERRA\RtK or something like that. The other games were
installed in D:\games\Morrowind and D:\games\steam, yet the contents of
those directories has been removed as well.
How this tool got through any kind of QA process is beyond me...
BTW, after you answered, I received a web-forum-like notification email
from gamernewsgroups.com. Is this just a spammer fishing for valid email
addresses, or some service you are using to access usenet?
--
Chris
look@worldnet.att.net dawg
But,since you ran across Sierras' famous deleteware I don't suppose you'll
try it again.
"Christian Klassen" <use...@ch-k.net> wrote in message
news:1a8gnhcgfhnlt$.1apvksdslzp4g.dlg@40tude.net...
Knight37
Christian Klassen wrote:
> BTW, after you answered, I received a web-forum-like notification email
> from gamernewsgroups.com. Is this just a spammer fishing for valid email
> addresses, or some service you are using to access usenet?
I think that web site must be searching the newsgroups for new
messages, and somehow indexing them, then whoever initiated the thread
will get sent an email (from that web site) if someone replies to it. I
have gotten several emails to my knig...@gmail.com address from them
before.
I use that email as sort of a "free for all" email. Basically if you
post a real email in usenet you can expect a shitload of spam and other
nonsense like this "service", so that's why I use Google Mail for
those. I get hundreds of spam emails a day to this address, but most of
it gets caught by the spam filter. Maybe 4 or 5 emails a day that are
spam get through and I have to "mark as spam" manually.
knight37
Arcana Dragon
> How this tool got through any kind of QA process is beyond me...
Well, why don't you see any Sierra games anymore? :-)
BTW: I have RtK - let me try and install it, and I'll get back to you.
--
Arcana Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
d++e++N++T+++Om-KAWML!34567'!S'!8!9!u+uC+uF+++uG-u
LB®----uAnC+nH++nP+nI----nPT-nS+++nT----o---oE---xz
http://www.phyton.dk/games.htm
Knight37
> Christian Klassen <use...@ch-k.net> wrote in
> news:1fehr1rm6ccti$.1f6ivbjddpzfg$.d...@40tude.net:
>
>> How this tool got through any kind of QA process is beyond me...
>
> Well, why don't you see any Sierra games anymore? :-)
>
> BTW: I have RtK - let me try and install it, and I'll get back to you.
Make sure you install to the root directory. That's important. ;p
(whatever you do, don't do what I just said)
--
Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com
Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.
Knight37
> It probably would have worked in DOS Box or similar utility.
> But,since you ran across Sierras' famous deleteware I don't suppose
> you'll try it again.
Well it sounded to me like it worked okay he just didn't like the fact that
it was old school graphics. OLD school baby.
Arcana Dragon
130.133.1.4:
> (whatever you do, don't do what I just said)
Grin... :-)
Christian Klassen
> It probably would have worked in DOS Box or similar utility.
> But,since you ran across Sierras' famous deleteware I don't suppose you'll
> try it again.
>
Maybe you mistake the game for the 1993 title "Betrayal at Krondor". But
this ("Return to Krondor") was released in 1998, when DOS games were
already a thing of the past.
As Wikipedia writes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Krondor ), it
debuted around the holidays of 1998 (correct me if I'm wrong, "holidays"
means the last weeks of the year in the US, doesn't it?), two years after
Diablo, for example, which was also a Windows only game.
And in most cases, software from that time installs and runs fine on
Windows XP, that's why I tried it.
--
Chris
Christian Klassen
> "dawg" <don't lo...@worldnet.att.net> once tried to test me with:
>
>> It probably would have worked in DOS Box or similar utility.
>> But,since you ran across Sierras' famous deleteware I don't suppose
>> you'll try it again.
>
> Well it sounded to me like it worked okay he just didn't like the fact that
> it was old school graphics. OLD school baby.
Well, I'm not a total graphics whore ;-)
I just don't like the design decisions regarding the graphical
representation of the game world. And now that I think of it, I didn't like
it much back when it was released, either.
You're walking through static prerendered screens, while the creatures and
characters are low-detail polygon models. The game is screen-based: if your
PC reaches a certain point on one screen, the camera abruptly switches to
another screen viewing a different portion of the world from a totally
different angle. I find this confusing and it doesn't lend itself well to
world exploration. I'd find a consistend isometric view, like in Baldur's
Gate or the old Ultimas MUCH better than this.
--
Chris
Christian Klassen
> I use that email as sort of a "free for all" email. Basically if you
> post a real email in usenet you can expect a shitload of spam and other
> nonsense like this "service", so that's why I use Google Mail for
> those.
"The 1990s just called, they want their good advice back" ;-) (just
kidding).
The email address I'm using here of course isn't a "valuable" one. It can
be changed within minutes, if it's too. Additionally, I've got to test at
some time, how much obfuscation my current Usenet provider allows
(news.individual.de). Last time I tried to change my name and email
address, back when they were news.cis.dfn.de, I got an email telling me
this wasn't allowed.
--
Chris
NFLed
Krondor or Betrayal at Antara. None of these 3 were all that special
but the original (BaK) was fairly good while the others were mediocre
but not bad.
Raymond Martineau
>
>Christian Klassen wrote:
>> ... a friendly warning from me:
>>
>> Well, after a short while it turned out that this wasn't the case for me (I
>> can't bear the static screens with the arbitrary camera positions), so I
>> decided to uninstall it again.
>>
>> But the game also installed those obnoxious "Sierra Utilities" without
>> asking, which claimed their right to be prominently visible in the Windows
>> Programs menu and refused to be uninstalled if any Sierra product was also
>> installed on the computer.
>
>That's the bad thing about trying an older game, you never know what
>kind of bug you're going to encounter and no one remembers these
>nightmare problems like deleting your hard drive. Be thankful you
>didn't just install the game to your root directory or it would have
>nailed your entire drive.
Betrayl of Krondor is supposed to be a Dos game, released very close to the
pre-windows era. Sierra Utilities must have been added afterward in a
later version of the game.
In any case, it's nothing that "alternate removal" tactics can't handle.
Alternativly, a quick grab of some third-party uninstall utilities won't
hurt either, if they are still present after this time.
>There may be other old games that have similar installer bugs. Anyway,
>this is why I do not use game uninstallers for anything released prior
>to 2002. I just delete the game's directory and maybe if I'm feeling
>particularly Martha Stewart, use Registrar Lite to delete all the
>related entries in the registry.
As far as I know, these bugs are generally rare. Of course, once you hear
of such a critical bug, you should immediatly tape a message to the disk.
(That means a few games in my collection.)
look@worldnet.att.net dawg
game. The fight scenes were kinda strang thoughwith characters sliding
across the ground.Hmm.
"Christian Klassen" <use...@ch-k.net> wrote in message
news:1xykl0jjj9ikw.1...@40tude.net...
look@worldnet.att.net dawg
"Christian Klassen" <use...@ch-k.net> wrote in message
news:1goc7lwfofidx.l...@40tude.net...