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Fix for Sierra installers

Open BEENNath58 opened this issue 2 years ago • 17 comments

Many Sierra installers have issues running with OTVDM. Some examples can be Power Chess 96, Leisure Suit Larry 7, 3D Ultra Pinball Creep Night, Rama, etc.

Although modern 32-bit installers exist for some popular games, they don't exist for the others. So, I believe it could be good if this bug can be fixed.

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 11 '22 06:10 BEENNath58

The sierra.ini file needs to be moved from winevdm windows dir to the machine windows dir. Winevdm can't predict whether the installed program is a win16 one or win32 one so I don't know of a sane way to make this work automatically.

cracyc avatar Oct 12 '22 00:10 cracyc

3D Ultra Pinball (the original release) also has this issue.

The sierra.ini file needs to be moved from winevdm windows dir to the machine windows dir.

What do you mean exactly? In my case, I'm running the SETUP.EXE straight from a mounted ISO disc image.

ks202005 avatar Oct 17 '22 08:10 ks202005

What is the problem you are seeing? If it's the hang on the cdrom test, just skip the machine tests when it asks. If the game shows an error after install move the sierra.ini file from the \windows directory to the c:\windows directory.

cracyc avatar Oct 17 '22 15:10 cracyc

Hi. There are different types of problems actually. Most of the installers start and don't display on the screen. An example is Power Chess 96, the sound will play, and the icon appears on Taskbar but there's no window. However, the newer Power Chess 98 setup displays and runs properly.

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 17 '22 19:10 BEENNath58

I tried 3d pinball creep and lsl7 and the screen appears for both. They also install except the cdrom test fails (can be skipped) and sierra.ini is in the wrong place.

cracyc avatar Oct 17 '22 22:10 cracyc

I am aware of the SIERRA.INI transfer to run the game and the divide by 0 error in CD-ROM check, but they aren't the problems. This the actual problem I am seeing:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/64649734/196356096-b6fe9d76-298c-410a-8ca7-8e6170f46d73.mp4

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 18 '22 06:10 BEENNath58

It's likely that the window is appearing offscreen so you can try setting 640x480 compatibility otherwise a trace is needed.

cracyc avatar Oct 18 '22 14:10 cracyc

It's likely that the window is appearing offscreen so you can try setting 640x480 compatibility otherwise a trace is needed.

Yes I tried all the settings I can put (640x480 ode, 8 or 16 bit color, admin privileges) but they didn't help. Can you tell how to create a trace?

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 19 '22 05:10 BEENNath58

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm/issues/226#issuecomment-779702542

cracyc avatar Oct 19 '22 14:10 cracyc

#226 (comment)

Here is the trace: trace.txt

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 19 '22 17:10 BEENNath58

From your trace:

0fa4:Call USER.452: CREATEWINDOWEX(00000000,13074f52 "Afx:2203:1266:5:1416",1307007b "Sierra On-Line Setup",01cc0000,0780,0000,0000,0438,0000,0000,1306,00000000) ret=12df:924d ds=1307

This means the window is appearing at 1920x0 with size 0x1280, so offscreen to the right with 0 height.

On my computer for comparison:

2578:Call USER.452: CREATEWINDOWEX(00000000,12f74f52 "Afx:2203:1256:5:140e",12f7007b "Sierra On-Line Setup",01cc0000,0000,0000,0dfe,05a0,0000,0000,12f7,00000000) ret=12cf:924d ds=12f7

It appears to be positioning the window based on where the taskbar (Shell_TrayWnd) so it doesn't cover it up. Windows 11 may mess up the calculation.

cracyc avatar Oct 19 '22 19:10 cracyc

What is the solution/workaround then...?

BEENNath58 avatar Oct 20 '22 06:10 BEENNath58

Trying to install half-life (1999 release) and it doesnt work either (dont tell me to use steam i already have it on steam i wanna try the old version)

sastofficial avatar Nov 21 '22 15:11 sastofficial

Need a trace to be certain it's the same problem.

cracyc avatar Nov 21 '22 22:11 cracyc

While I was trying to install CyberGladiators (which is a Sierra game), the installer plays sound and the Sierra icon displays on the taskbar, but the installer window itself doesn't display.

Here's the trace: trace.txt

Froakiein2022 avatar Jun 28 '24 19:06 Froakiein2022

This is the same problem. It doesn't happen for me so I can only guess. Try uncommenting WINVER=3.1 in your otvdm.ini file.

cracyc avatar Jun 28 '24 21:06 cracyc

This is the same problem. It doesn't happen for me so I can only guess. Try uncommenting WINVER=3.1 in your otvdm.ini file.

Uncommenting WINVER=3.1 in your otvdm.ini file solved that problem. Thanks.

Froakiein2022 avatar Jun 28 '24 23:06 Froakiein2022