Caesar II, Windows 7(x64), and the forDosBox installer

[Kurisu]

Hello,

I've got a Caesar II disc that I cannot get to work with the installer. It seem to not accept the disc. Actually, it actively rejects it by constantly ejecting it. I know it's not the drive's problem, because it will spin and whirr and sound like it's working, but then it goes "nope" and asks me to insert the disc. The disc itself seems to have no scratches or dirt of any kind, and looking at my drives in My Computer tells me that I have CAESAR2IBM inserted.

Help please?

[Collector]

It may be that you have a version unknown to the installer. Do you have a localized version? Often third party publishers of re-releases lay out their discs differently than Sierra. Is there a different publisher listed on your release?

[Kurisu]

It looks like it's pure Sierra. Have a look:

The CD


And close-up

The scratches are the case!

[Collector]

It looks just like the original. I just tested both my local copy and the one on the server and it installed with no problems. Post a list of the files in the base of the directory of the CD so I see if it has different layout.

[Kurisu]

Somehow I thought this would be easier than typing it out.


Hopefully it's what you meant

[Collector]

Wow, that is very different. Even though the label looks like the original, the contents do not. The AutoRun is a non-Sierra program. Even the volume label is not one that Sierra ever used. I suspect that this is a Slash release, which tended to use their own installers, etc. In the original discs there are a number of game files in the root of the disc. And there are also some missing folders. You have Explorer set to hide extensions and probably to hide files with hidden and system attributes, but that would not hide the files that the installer expects to find in the base. I see that the DOS installer has been stripped out.

My installer sets up the DOS version in DOSBox for maximum compatibility. Without the DOS version, I am not sure what to tell you how to get the game to run if you have 64-bit Windows. The game is 32-bits, so it might run, but the Windows setup is 16-bits. Even if you manage to manually install the game, I do not know if you would encounter game breaking bugs with the Windows version.

If you have Win7 Pro, you could try the original installer in XP Mode, but otherwise you might have to setup some other Virtual Machine.

[Kurisu]

I have Windows 7 Home. *sigh* better figure out a Virtual Machine. Any beginner tips?

[Collector]

Besides XP Mode (which is the main reason that I went with Win7 Pro), the usual suspects are the likes of Bochs, QEMU, VirtualBox, Virtual PC 2007, VMware Player and PCem. There are others, of course, but all except for XP Mode requires that you own an older version of Windows to install in the VM. You Google for links.

One last option if you have access to an older machine is to install the game on that machine while using an install tracker like TrackWinstall to monitor the changes he installer makes so you can simply copy the game files over to you PC and manually make the Registry/INI file changes, add any system files required, etc. This is the main way that I "reverse engineer" 16-bit installers for 32-bit games. I can then use this information to write a 32-bit modern installer. It is one of the main things that I use XP Mode to do.

[Kurisu]

In between your replies I've been trying out Virtual PC 2007. I unfortunately didn't have a choice in which Win7 I went with, and I don't have access to an older machine.

Thank you for your help! I'll post follow-up stuff here, I guess, in case someone else ends up with the same problem I have. (I must say I found no information with my specific issues.)

Edit: Still got some kinks to work out. Started to install the game on the VM but it ended in error. Seemed that there were some missing files with the Win95 install disc....

[Collector]

I wonder if you were stuck with a bootleg disc, given the missing files I saw and the odd volume label.

[Kurisu]

That would be weird, since I got this game from my grandfather, and he's had it for a very very long time. I guess it's possible that he ended up with that, but he's good about stuff like that. I mean... I remember playing at his house on the good ol' Windows 98 when I was a young'un. So that's the VM I've switched to.

Hmm... even then, it was finicky to get working.

Edit:

Everything is proceeding as normal now, including the part where "Caesar II is set to run in MS-DOS mode..." and then I "press SPACE to run from hard-drive only" (Creator, did that happen for you, too?)

However, the program won't continue because "Mouse driver not found. Restarting Windows." I have a USB wireless mouse and keyboard, and those work fine in the VM. Any ideas how to get around this?

[Collector]

check that "mouseDrv = STDMOUSE.DRV" is set in the RESOURCE.CFG.

[Kurisu]

I found a RESOURCE.CFG at d: > HD > RESOURCE , is that the one you mean? There is no existing field in that file (which I am editing with notepad), so I am going to just add it in.

Edit: Nope! read-only & disc-space errors
Edit2: Duh... forgot it would be in C: also.
Edit3: I did this and nothing has changed:

(Just in case: It is still a .cfg, but the icon changed )

[Collector]

It is the one in the installed folder that is important. Search the CD for an "install.exe' or an "install.bat".

[Kurisu]

There is no install.*, but there is a Setup.exe, which runs the Sierra On-Line installer, and C2.bat which is probably further from what you said but is what I've had the installer ask me to find in some circumstances (don't ask me what just now, just woke up from 3 hours sleep, sorry!) after the game was supposed to have been installed.

Edit: This hassle probably wouldn't happen with a wired mouse, would it?