Trials of the Luremaster in Windows 10

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, to try and clear it out and make the OS think it's not installed anymore. If you haven't any experience with regedit, it's probably not the safest to mess around with, though.

[Guest IWD Lover]

I don't know how you lucked out getting Trials to work in Windows 10 Bartimaeus, but I don't think that's the norm.  I just did a fresh install of Windows 10 and before doing anything else, went straight for Icewind Dale.  The base game and Heart of Winter work with no problems as before.  Trials gives the same incompatibility message as before.  Has anyone else had success getting Trials to work in Windows 10?  What's the secret?

I believe some sort of error report gets sent to Microsoft upon using the compatibility troubleshooter and selecting the appropriate option after not achieving any success.  I wouldn't know if that'd ever actually make it to the eyes of anyone at Microsoft capable of designing a quick fix.  Anyone know of an effective route to request assistance from Microsoft pertaining to such issues?

[Bartimaeus]

That stinks. The Trials of the Luremaster install .exe is 71.2MB, right?

Edited April 6, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Jarno Mikkola]

Yeah, thing is, it doesn't recognize all the IWD+HoW versions out there. And it's here by the by.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[Guest IWD Lover]

Doesn't recognize all the versions?  I guess I don't know what you mean.  It recognizes the IWD and HoW installation from my discs as installed on my previous Windows 7 laptop.  The error message in Windows 10 states that "an installation support file could not be installed."  I would think it means a support file for the installation wizard itself that attempts to initiate the TotLM install, but maybe I'm wrong.  Perhaps the DirectX 7.0a we spoke of earlier?

[Bartimaeus]

If I had to guess, when IWD1/HOW are installed, the installers set a number of registry values and install a few files in pre-determined locations that the Trials of the Luremaster patch attempts to confirm are correct before it goes ahead. Most likely what's happened is that Windows 10 has changed how it handles something in that process from previous versions of Windows, so that a file or registry value gets put somewhere that the patch does not expect and cannot account for. Windows 10 has also undergone a number of majors revisions at this point, it's possible that it could even be a subversion problem. I attempted to identify all the checks that the patch checked for, but was unfortunately unable to successfully identify all of them.

(e): Why does trying to use spoilers break every single one of my posts whenever I try to use it every single time on these forums? Ugh.

Registry values it seemed to need:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\WOW6432Node\Black Isle]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\WOW6432Node\Black Isle\Icewind Dale]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\WOW6432Node\Black Isle\Icewind Dale\1.00.000]
"Language"="English"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\WOW6432Node\Black Isle\Icewind Dale - Heart of Winter]
"Path"="%Game Folder%"
"FullPath"="%Game Folder%\\IDMain.exe"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\WOW6432Node\Black Isle\Icewind Dale - Heart of Winter\1.00.000]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\IDMain.exe]
"Path"="%Game Folder%"
@="%Game Folder%\\IDMain.exe"

It also needed some file called like ISInstall.exe or something in the C:\Windows folder, and some files in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common folder. It also, of course, needed IDMain.exe in the Icewind Dale directory (but nothing else). Removing one of these would each cause the Trials of the Luremaster patch to fail - but transposing all of these to a clean system that hadn't already had IWD+HOW installed before owuld still not let me run the Trials of the Luremaster patch, so it seems as though there is still at least one other check I am missing. Very strange, since I ran it in a sandbox and should've been able to see every single change made to the system by these two installers, and I did a complete registry hive comparison, but still was not able to find whatever it was missing. Sorry!

Edited April 7, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Guest IWD Lover]

Valiant effort commended!  Eventually someone must come across what we're missing or don't know.  Here's a callout to all IWD loving techies.

[Guest IWD Lover]

This isn't a way to get Trials to install in Windows 10, but I've been made aware of an alternative.  If you have a previous version of Windows, install Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter along the exact same path as you have them installed in Windows 10.  From here, just swap out your "Icewind Dale" folder in Windows 10 with that of your previous version of Windows.  Party on adventurers...

[Bartimaeus]

33 minutes ago, Guest IWD Lover said:

This isn't a way to get Trials to install in Windows 10, but I've been made aware of an alternative.  If you have a previous version of Windows, install Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter along the exact same path as you have them installed in Windows 10.  From here, just swap out your "Icewind Dale" folder in Windows 10 with that of your previous version of Windows.  Party on adventurers...

I would've mentioned this if I thought you had access to a Windows 7 computer, whoops. I made clean backups of my IE directories and put them in zip files to prevent reinstalling a long time ago, and you don't even need the games to be "installed" if you just run them through the game .exe instead of the launcher (...and make sure their main .ini files point to the correct location).

Edited April 13, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Guest IWD Lover]

I don't see a .exe in the Icewind Dale folder.  That's the same as the "IDMain" application within said folder?  Where are the .ini files located and how do you direct them?

[Bartimaeus]

Okay, so for example, my Icewind Dale folder is located in D:\Icewind Dale\Icewind Dale (...because Icewind Dale II is in the first Icewind Dale folder, and I love nested, organizational folders). I change the second Icewind Dale to be "Icewind Dale1", and try to launch IDMain.exe (Icewind Dale 1 doesn't have a launcher .exe - now that I think about it, I think only BG1 and BG2 do): I get an assertion error and it fails to launch.

In the Icewind Dale directory, there is a "icewind.ini" file - if you open it up with a plaintext editor (e.g. Notepad), you'll see the "HD0=[path]", "CD1=[path]" lines under Alias. You'll note that the paths specified go to your previous location of the game directory - change all of them to the new one, save, and launching IDMain.exe magically works again. The same principle applies to all of the games. You don't actually need a given system to go through the "installation" via the installer CD/exe - just need to make sure the .ini points to the correct path if you actually have all the game files already.

I apparently haven't had BG2 properly installed for years - I opened the launcher and it thinks it wants to install instead of play.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[AL|EN]

In order to not manually fix *.ini files and registry entries for each game, you can use my tool: http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1063-infinity-engine-game-launcher/

[AL|EN]

@Bartimaeus That's because you don't have proper registry entry's, use IEGL for fix.

[Jarno Mikkola]

5 hours ago, Guest IWD Lover said:

I don't see a .exe in the Icewind Dale folder.  That's the same as the "IDMain" application within said folder?  Where are the .ini files located and how do you direct them?

This is because you don't have the "familiar" file extensions shown, in the folder and file options. Guess you aren't that familiar with the bad options, set by default. Dont you just love it when Macrohard does things wrong by default.

 

6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

put them in zip files to prevent reinstalling a long time ago... that comes with the .ini's I can then edit.

The extraction time is faster with WinRAR and it makes smaller files... but of course you need WinRAR to extract.. but I always install that by default. Yeah, that's an important detail.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[Bartimaeus]

4 hours ago, AL|EN said:

@Bartimaeus That's because you don't have proper registry entry's, use IEGL for fix.

No doubt - because I never installed the game on this Windows format. However, as established, it's an unnecessary problem to fix, since the game works perfectly fine without, .

@WinRAR: I'll take your word for it, Jarno, but nevertheless, I think I'll stick with 7zip.