Baldur's Gate II Installation on Windows 7

[NShepherd N7]

Hopefully this is the right place to put this. I bought the Dungeons & Dragons Anthology (Baldur's Gate 1&2 + Expansions, Icewind Dale 1&2, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Planescape Torment) from Gamestop's Impulse app a while back. I had no problem running them on my old Windows 7 laptop but for some reason I've run into all sorts of problems on my newer Windows 7 desktop. I plan on doing some modding so I installed them all outside Program Files (x86) like I remember I'm supposed to in their own folder called D&D Anthology, and each into their own folder after that. But whenever I tried to get the games to work I was given an odd error message. After some searching I found the solution outlined in this page. For example, CD5 in my baldur.ini file reads as follows: CD5:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

 

Baldur's Gate 1 seems to work fine but whenever I start Baldur's Gate 2 and pick to play Shadows of Amn the game tells me I need to insert Disc 2, which is obviously a problem since I downloaded the game. All I really want is to get working versions of both games so I can feel confident installing EasyTutu and start some easy modding from there. Any ideas what's wrong and how to go about fixing it? I'm not the greatest with computers but I've been working diligently on this for the past few days and I'm getting quite frustrated. If you need any additional information feel free to ask.

 

Thanks,

NShep

[Jarno Mikkola]

...

Well, what does the other lines under the [Alias] in the baldur.ini say ?

 

Something to the effect of:

[Alias]

HD0:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\

CD1:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD1\

CD2:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD2\

CD3:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD3\

CD4:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD4\

CD5:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD5\

And if not, well they probably should, if there's folders called CD2-CD5 in the game directory. So copypaste the info, and I'll take a look.

 

And you ddid start the game from the BGMain.exe ? Not from the baldur.exe -file.

[NShepherd N7]

HD0:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\

CD1:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

CD2:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

CD3:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

CD4:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

CD5:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

CD6:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

 

The instructions I was following told me to put all of the "data" in a folder called "data" in the "data" folder. Yeah, I know, confusing. Same with the movies. And yes, I've tried starting the game from the Gamestop Impulse App, from the desktop shortcut, and from BGMain, all have the same effect of asking for Disc 2.

[Jarno Mikkola]

...

Ouh, well, there's no CD6 in the BG2 game, there was a extra pre-purchase CD that contained nothing but a small edition to the baldur.ini file... hmm, erhm you did install the BGII expansion after the BGII, as it might be that the one doesn't work without the other. It's the D&D Anthology's own fault.

 

Erhm, and by the way, those instructions are not for regular use but for some slitely advanced studies ... as it actually removes data... erhm, the space the game needs to occupies. As the CD2-CD5 contain same files...

 

Hmm, actually the instructions should tell you to copy the "data" directory from these places:

C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD2\

C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD3\

C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD4\

C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD5\

And put them all in here:

C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data\

Resulting in the fact that there is a data -folder in the data -folder (C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data\data ...) in where all the .bif files lay their homes at.

[NShepherd N7]

So I shouldn't have a CD6 listed, even though it tells me to?

 

Gamestop Impulse downloaded and installed both Baldur's Gate II and its expansion at the same time.

 

I'm not sure what you're telling me to do in that last part. I did cut all the data from CD2-5 and pasted them into C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data\data. Is there something else I should have done? Should I have just copied instead of cutting and pasting? For dupicate files found through CD2-5, should I ignore them, or what?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Did you empty your DVD & CD drives, including your virtual drives ? As basically the game is trying to run the games movies from the CD. And what did you do with the movie files ? The one originally in here C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\CD2\Movies\ ... there's a file called "Movies.bif" and another called "MovIntro.bif".

[NShepherd N7]

I put the movie files in C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data\Movies

There is a "Movies.bif" file but there is no file named "MovIntro.bif", instead there were two files called "25Movies.bif" and "MovCD3.bif".

[Jarno Mikkola]

There is a "Movies.bif" file but there is no file named "MovIntro.bif",

This might wery vell ... be the reason why the game ask for the cd ... as it can't show you the intro movie. I just uploaded the file to mediafire, link... the file size is about ~41 Mb's in a .rar file, which you need to extract with Winrar or similar program to the said directory without the folder... ouh, and if you would be so kind and say when you have downloaded the file so I can remove it.

[NShepherd N7]

Well I downloaded and extracted it and placed it in the movies file but still nothing. I don't know what to do. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling but it still doesn't work. Perhaps it has something to do with me installing outside Program Files (x86) but from what I understand I have to in order to use EasyTutu. And I need EasyTutu before I add the few mods I want.

 

What a pain. I feel like I spend more time getting games to work on PC than actually playing them. I'm this close to just buying them again from GOG but I don't know if that would fix the problem.

[InKal]

Hopefully this is the right place to put this. I bought the Dungeons & Dragons Anthology (Baldur's Gate 1&2 + Expansions, Icewind Dale 1&2, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Planescape Torment) from Gamestop's Impulse app a while back. I had no problem running them on my old Windows 7 laptop but for some reason I've run into all sorts of problems on my newer Windows 7 desktop. I plan on doing some modding so I installed them all outside Program Files (x86) like I remember I'm supposed to in their own folder called D&D Anthology, and each into their own folder after that. But whenever I tried to get the games to work I was given an odd error message. After some searching I found the solution outlined in this page. For example, CD5 in my baldur.ini file reads as follows: CD5:=C:\D&D Anthology\Baldur's Gate II\data

 

Baldur's Gate 1 seems to work fine but whenever I start Baldur's Gate 2 and pick to play Shadows of Amn the game tells me I need to insert Disc 2, which is obviously a problem since I downloaded the game. All I really want is to get working versions of both games so I can feel confident installing EasyTutu and start some easy modding from there. Any ideas what's wrong and how to go about fixing it? I'm not the greatest with computers but I've been working diligently on this for the past few days and I'm getting quite frustrated. If you need any additional information feel free to ask.

 

Thanks,

NShep

 

You are doing it all wrong. Stop wasting your time. Throw all this garbage you bought on this gamestop impulse app (wtf? is that) and buy all those games on GOG.

 

Baldur's Gate 2 for exemple: http://www.gog.com/g...gate_2_complete You got everything you want, patched and mod ready.

 

 

And if you don't have the $$ just torrent it

 

 

 

I'm this close to just buying them again from GOG but I don't know if that would fix the problem.

 

word

[NShepherd N7]

To replace my copies on GOG would cost me another $50.

 

I just wish I knew what the issue is, and why there is an issue in the first place. If I buy my games, I expect them to work.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Time to send the angry letter...

[ericp07]

When the game asks that a CD be inserted, it's because no CD or disk image is mounted on the desktop. I have disk images on my desktop, and before launching the game, I have to mount the CD2 image. It works perfectly every time that way.

[Isaya]

NShepherd N7, the version you have is supposed to be very similar to the version available on Good Old Games, so you would gain nothing buying it again. IIRC Atari released this compilation shortly after the GOG release and probably made a deal to use the compact version made by GOG. Moreover, if you look at screenshots on GameStop, the IWD 2 screens have characters named GOGsorcerer and GOGera. Strange that they would use such screenshots if GOG did not provide everything.

 

The content of Baldur.ini that you exposed is very similar to the one you get with the GOG version. There is indeed an unused CD6 line. All the bif files are also in subdirectories called Data and Movies from the data directory, starting from the directory you choose when installing.

There should be a MovIntro.bif file in data\Movies, that is needed at the time the game asks you the CD. There should 5 files in data\Movies, all containing Mov in their names. There should be 106 files in data\Data.

 

If you only miss that file, you could try setting Disable Movies=1 in the [Program Options] part of Baldur.ini to start without movies, in case your problem is only about movies.

[NShepherd N7]

Okay, I think I got it to work. I completely reinstalled just to start fresh. I edited baldur.ini to look like what I posted above, I made two folders in "data", one labled "Data" and the other "Movies". Then I moved all the files from the CD files to their new locations, respectively, while ignoring duplicate files. Then I deleted the now-empty CD folders. As Isaya mentioned, I did not have 5 movies in the movie folder, but only three. So I searched my entire Baldur's Gate folder for them and did manage to locate the intro and End movies. Why they were placed somewhere seperately is beyond me. I started the game, created my character, and FINALLY managed to make it to the prison prelude. Whew! And all that just so I knew I had working latest-versions of the games so I could install EasyTutu and start some modding.

 

Thanks for the help guys, odd I had to do so much configuration to get it to work but I guess that's computer gaming for you. One last question, or more like a request for advice. Here are the following mods I intend to install. Are they in the proper order, and is there any compatibility issues here?

 

EasyTutu

NPC Kits (where is the location for this? the link I found no longer works)

TutuFix

Mini Quests/Encounters

Unfinished Business

NPC Project

Coran's Friendship

Full Plate & Packing Steel

Ashes of Embers

Tweak Pack

Spawn Randomizer

Level 1 NPCs (is this compatible/does it replace the NPC Kits mod?)

Widescreen Mod