Help with CD Version (1.0)

[rowport]

Hey, Dan!

Well, I finally picked up Hero Designer from Steve and Darren at GenCon! As a slow-connection kind-of-guy (for now, anyway) I waited for the CD version.

I am a bit reluctant to post this question, for fear of looking stupid, but I am completely baffled by my problem: whenever I try to execute the autolrun program, I just get a MS Text box (empty), and whenever I try to execute the setup program under the Windows directory, I get a DOS emulation box for a quick second which immediately disappears without doing anything! I see three folders on the CD (Linux, Windows, and Solaris, along with the autorun and a Hero Designer icon which Windows does not recognize. I looked for documentation, but could not find it on the disk.

I am not sure if this is a CD problem or a system problem?

I am using a AMD 750mhz PC with 128M.

Let me know! Thanks.

[nblade]

you need to run the setup located in the windows directory on the CD.

[rowport]

Nblade-

Thanks for trying to help! As I said, "...whenever I try to execute the setup program under the Windows directory, I get a DOS emulation box for a quick second which immediately disappears without doing anything!" I also tried copying the setup file to my C: drive to launch from there, but had the same result.

Any other suggestions, folks?

I am going to try to load it on my work PC today, to ensure that it is not a corrupted file on the CD.

[Simon]

The autorun file on the CD should automatically launch the installation program (unless you have autorun disabled on your machine).

From the sound of things, you either have a corrupt CD or your system is having problems with the InstallAnywhere application which sets up HD.

If it installs cleanly on your work system, then it's the latter case. If this occurs, try grabbing a new copy of Java from the Sun website (www.java.sun.com). InstallAnywhere uses Java behind the scenes to run the installer. HD will put its own copy on during the installation process, but you need to get into the intallation before this will occur.

Let me know what happens with the work system and with the Java install and we can go from there.....

[rowport]

Dan-

How are you? Thanks for the reply.

OK, well I tried it (here) on my work PC, and had exactly the same problem. I will try to outline it again with more detail:

From the CD base (no folder):
1. Autorun does not self launch (and reads as an empty text file to Windows when I try to execute it).
2. The HeroDesigner icon wants an application to launch.

From the Windows folder:
1. Setup.exe does launch a dos window, but immediately shuts down with no activity.
2. That is the only file I see here, but I get the impression that there should be a .pdf documentation file too?

My PC here is a P3 with 260M running Windows2000. (I forgot to mention that my home PC is running XP.)

If you would rather take this off the boards via e-mail, that is cool with me.

[Simon]

Originally posted by rowport
Dan-

How are you? Thanks for the reply.

OK, well I tried it (here) on my work PC, and had exactly the same problem. I will try to outline it again with more detail:

From the CD base (no folder):
1. Autorun does not self launch (and reads as an empty text file to Windows when I try to execute it).
2. The HeroDesigner icon wants an application to launch.

From the Windows folder:
1. Setup.exe does launch a dos window, but immediately shuts down with no activity.
2. That is the only file I see here, but I get the impression that there should be a .pdf documentation file too?

My PC here is a P3 with 260M running Windows2000. (I forgot to mention that my home PC is running XP.)

If you would rather take this off the boards via e-mail, that is cool with me.
The PDF is inside the installer....once the installer is running properly, it will be place in the install folder with the rest of the HD files.

If it's not working on your work PC either, then it's sounding very much like a bad CD.

What is the size (in bytes) of the setup.exe file on the CD?

[rowport]

Dan-

"What is the size (in bytes) of the setup.exe file on the CD?"

19.0 MB (19,949,568 bytes)

[Simon]

That's the proper size.

Try installing Java (go to www.java.sun.com) and see if that has any effect. There's something up with your systems that is preventing the installer from running.

Do you have any anti-virus software or popup killer software running? Basically, anything that would kill the installer...

[rowport]

Hey-

I installed the latest version of Java from the site you gave me, but no-go there.

I disabled my pop-up killer, and that did not do it either. I will disable Norton AV and try again...

[Teflon Billy]

This sounds similar to what was happening to me when I first tried to install it. The installer would get started and then crash out with out doing anything.

My problem was the corrupted font file issue with Java. Reinstall your fonts (or just reinstall your OS; which is what I did) and it might clear up the problem.

TB

[rowport]

Dan-

I tried again without Norton AV, and had the same result. I appreciate you staying with me on this, and see the general roadmap, but am not sure how to proceed.

TeflonBilly-

Thanks for the insight! I did install the newest version of Java (would have to confirm the call numbers, but I think it was 1.1.4). Would that resolve the corrupted font problem, or is it within the desktop OS (i.e. Windows 2000)?

[Simon]

Originally posted by rowport
Dan-

I tried again without Norton AV, and had the same result. I appreciate you staying with me on this, and see the general roadmap, but am not sure how to proceed.

TeflonBilly-

Thanks for the insight! I did install the newest version of Java (would have to confirm the call numbers, but I think it was 1.1.4). Would that resolve the corrupted font problem, or is it within the desktop OS (i.e. Windows 2000)?

The Font issue is a problem between the OS and Java....it's at a very low-level and impossible to catch from within the code (unfortunately).

A couple of new things to try:

1. Open up a DOS prompt. Try running the setup from there. This won't fix the problem, but it may show you why the app is erroring out. Let me know what error message is displayed in the dos prompt when the installer crashes.

2. I'm a little skeptical of the font problem, since you're having the issue on both your work system and your home system.....however, if you want to test it out, you can always try the following: go to your system fonts directory (typically C:\Windows\Fonts) and move all of the files into a temporary folder. Effectively, this will "uninstall" all of the fonts on your system. Some required fonts will be auto-generated/replaced in there by the system....don't worry about them. Try the installer again. If it works, let me know and i'll walk you through identifying which of your font files are corrupt.

[rowport]

Dan-

Hey- I tried both in reverse order. "Hiding" the fonts did nothing different. Then I re-installed the fonts, and ran the command prompt. The error message I received reads:

Program too big to fit in memory

This seemed weird to me, so I checked my system specs here again. I have 399MB free space on my hard drive, where the HD specs call for 75MB, and 260M of RAM.

???

[Simon]

OK...not entirely sure what's going wrong on your systems....

Let's try this:

Open the file "setup.exe" with WinZip (or the equivalent). It's really just an executable zip file. Extract the contents to a temp directory.

This should give you a directory structure along the lines of:
(extraction folder)\InstallerData
(extraction folder)\Windows

Go into the Windows directory. There should be a file called "setup.exe". This is the <i>real</i> installer. Try running that file (now that it's been extracted.

[rowport]

Dan-

Now we are getting somewhere..!

When I use WinZip to open the file, I get the following message:

WinZip cannot open this file. It does not appear to be a Zip file.
If this is a self-extracting file it is either not in the standard Zip format or it is corrupt.
Would you like to run this executable file?

If you choose "Yes", I get the same result- a dos box pops up, but then immediately shuts down with no action.

[Simon]

Hrrrm...odd.

Ok...try this: go to http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar320.exe

That's the installer for WinRAR. WinRAR is an alternate to WinZip....and a lot more powerful. You should have no problems opening up "setup.exe" with it.

That link is to the free version of WinRAR....fully functional, but with a nagware "splash" when the WinRAR starts up....

[rowport]

Dan-

Bummer. It looks like you were right, the CD is corrupt.

I downloaded the WinRAR app, and when I tried to open the setup.exe file (which it did recognize as a self-extracting file, btw), I got this error message:

The archive is either in an unknown format or damaged.

More ideas?

[Simon]

Originally posted by rowport
Dan-

Bummer. It looks like you were right, the CD is corrupt.

I downloaded the WinRAR app, and when I tried to open the setup.exe file (which it did recognize as a self-extracting file, btw), I got this error message:

The archive is either in an unknown format or damaged.

More ideas?
I've just verified that WinRAR will open the file just fine on my system, so it sounds like the error message is correct and you've got a bad burn on the CD.

Contact Ben (benseeman@herogames.com) and let him know what's up....he'll get you a new copy.

[rowport]

DS-

I also tried using the "repair" feature of WinRAR. It was not able to complete, but tells me that:

The file "???" header is corrupt.

It then says "no files recovered."

[rowport]

We just crossed messages. I will shoot Ben an e-mail.

Thanks for trying!

-Tom