Zork Grand Inquisitor's ongoing battle with Win XP

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Hello All;

I've been a fan of Zork since I was first introduced via 'Nemesis' some years back.
I have played ZGI on an older machine that supporting Win'95/98 but I'm currently trying to load and run it on
my Win XP machine with 'much' difficulty.
The trouble is this:
After getting ZGI fully loaded following kevin becker's excellent advise from his web page, I try to play the game.
I double click zgi.exe and get a black screen with the ZGI Cursor and if I move the cursor to the top of the screen
I get a drop down curtain tool bar area with I think 3 items on it (can't remember what they are).

Now the problem is when I click on the ZGI Cursor with my mouse I get a MS Windows Error Message saying that
Windows XP sees a problem with Zork Grand Inquisitor and gives me the option as to whether I want it to send a
problem report on it to MicroSoft.
When I click on this Windows Error Message with either 'Y' or 'N' the screen crashes back to the desk top.

Now I understand from kevin's web page and I quote,

4.Some people have had better luck with using a version of Windows XP before SP2, but I cannot verify this recommendation because Zork Grand Inquisitor has worked for me on XP from the beginning all the way through SP3."

I have Win XP with SP3 my question is this:
Do I dare dump SP3 and SP2 and try loading ZGI with just SP1 loaded?
Or will I chance wrecking my whole system.
Sorry for this longish message but I really would like to get into ZGI once again.

HB

[DataAngel]

The walkthrough should have worked, I would also take a look at the one I have here on my site, its basically the same thing though... but it sounds like you didnt edit the ZIX files... and its unable to find the disc/drive. Either make sure you follow my how to and use the correct ZIX modification or his. Please let me know if you did correctly follow this critical step. you can run the game from the hdd or the discs.

Keep in mind that ZGI seems to have an error with about every 4th save game load it wants to crash...

For the record I am running XP SP3.

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Hello and thank you for your help;

So I can maybe make some progress at last I have a question or two, please:

1. The ZGI Walkthrough speaks about running <zgi.cmd> (which i did do), does this not automatically edit those
specific files you mentioned.
2. When i looked in the ZGI directory on my C: drive i noted 2-folders i.e. disk#1 & disk#2. So apparently everything is
on my main drive and there is no need for the game when running to reference the CD-Rom drive, is this correct?
Finally (for now) 3. For some reason unbeknown to me the CD-Rom drive that i load from is names "I" not "D" as you
mention it should be elsewhere on your site.

I'll work through your answers to these perliminary questions first to see if and where I've slipped up then I'll reinstall
ZGI once again, can you suggest which would be the best walkthrough to work with?

Where are the Zork GI Walkthroughs kept on this site, are they in a folder etc, I can't find them.

Is there any chance someone (since Win XP is here to stay) could develop a patch or something, or even a re-release
of ZGI and ZN in a WinXP compatible version?

Thank you,

H B

[DataAngel]

I do not know anything about Kevin Bakers walkthroughs, I have not used nor tested them, they are almost identical to mine... there is only one way to get the game to play more or less. I don't know about running 'zgi.cmd' No, the reason for the howto is because you must manually edit and copy the files yourself.

Correct, once you copy the files to your hdd and edit the '.zix' file to reflect the new locations it will run without the discs.

It does not matter what your drive letter is, just swap 'D' for 'I' when you are following the howto.

I would highly recommend you follow my howto as I recently revised them and I feel they are very well written. Here is the link: http://thezorklibrary.com/phpbb/viewtop ... f=15&t=327, there is also a link located in the stickied post titled 'HOW-TO: Installing & Playing Zork Games' in this Zork Help Forum; the howto itself is located in the Zork Files & Information Forum.

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Thank you for all of the above, i'll dump those previous methods and start afresh!!
Hope you won't have to hear from me again??
MB

[DataAngel]

Acutally hearing back from you on whether my howto works or not, would be great! lol

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Brilliant!!

ZGI is finally loaded and it WORKS!

First I want to express my sincere thanks, your walkthrough worked brilliantly!
My only regret is that i did not contact you earlier it would have saved a lot of late nights and
much hair pulling.

Again, thank you.

One thing i did note that may or may not be of consequence, was that at the outset after
running <setup.exe> as per your script, Win XP deposited several obvious zgi.files onto the c:\
drive outside of the ZGI_CD folder.
This to me did not make any sense so i copied them and placed them inside the ZGI_CD folder.
Another irregularity i noted right at the outset was that Win XP had named the file ZGI_CD
ZGI.MZ, as this didn't correspond with what you say in the script i changed it to ZGI_CD

Every thing else followed suite and after manually editing those lines in inquis.zix i started the game and it
worked.

With gratitude,

H B

[DataAngel]

I am very glad it worked out for you, you don't know how many hours I spent writing it the first time and then the hours spent revising it recently and then moving into the forums.

I am not sure why there would be files outside the installation folder unless they were temp files and were removed after the installation. I will go grab my CD's and check to see what they are, unless you have a list of them by chance? Also, the ZGI.MZ I don't know about that, looks thats a filename not a folder. I don't have that file, 'ZGI.MZ' on my system. If you mean to say that 'ZGI.MZ' was where it was choosing to install it and you typed in 'ZGI_CD' then that is fine.

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Hello:

I'm going to re-load ZGI because for one i'm experiencing some problems within the game i.e the game does not save; their appears to be some problem with the tools; and it hangs up.

Also, if i re-load as per script we will recreate former situation of those files outside of the folder ZGI_CD
on c:\ ; also will see if ZGI.MZ re appears when running I:\setup.exe instead of ZGI_CD

If i <ScreenPrint> what c:\ has on it at that time can it be added as an attachment to my next dispatch to you?

I cannot find where on your ZLib Web Sites <Post a Reply> Attachments are permitted so that i can add the above?

Thank you,

H M

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

Hi,

I'v successfully printed to file (3) desktop views of what is on c:\

a. before using i:\setup.exe
b. after using i:\setup.exe
c. after using i:\setup.exe (files that are in zgi_mx)

I was wondering if i cannot send these three attachments to you via <Post a Reply>
can i email them to you as attachment?

Thank you,

H B

P.S I will do nothing further with ZGI until i hear back from you.

[DataAngel]

There is a tab below the reply window that says 'Upload attachment' you can use this for your files.

As for installation, yes install the game to ZGI_CD but all of the files etc. that appear in that folder are as they are meant to be. You should not be renaming any folders or files after installation. The zgi_mx folder is meant to be named that way. In my howto I do mention what files/folders need to be copied from the discs in order to install the game when 'setup.exe' fails to run.

The only known issue I have when running ZGI is that after about 4x of loading a saved game it likes to crash, nemesis appears to run just fine.

[Herigimo_Buckwort]

I think I'm starting to sort this out?!

Problem was as i read line "A" of your "CD How-To Install ZGI" i took it that when running <setup.exe>
it would automatically create a folder ZGI_CD on c:\ (and only if <setup.exe> did not work were you to follow
step 2)

This i did only to find the zgi_mx folder on c:\ with all the other zgi files/folders scattered about also
on c:\ and no ZGI_CD

This i interpreted as an error on the part of Win XP when i ran <setup.exe>

I therefore changed <zgi_mx> to ZGI_CD and then copied all the folders from disk 1 & 2 to it, (and edited file).

THIS TIME i've first run <setup.exe> then manually created the folder ZGI_CD then added all files and folders
into it.

With this once i get into the game maybe all the previous problems within the game will be fixed.

Thanks,

HB

[DataAngel]

When you run setup.exe you will have the option to choose the install directory/location that is when you use c:\ZGI_CD. then you would copy the asset folders directly there from the discs and make sure you are using the hdd zix file or use the cd zix file and dont copy the asset folders, its that simple! good luck!

[jpinsa]

Hi

I gather I am a bit late to this post but I was also wondering about this .cmd file that XP supposedly need to install when loading the game up on XP. I didn't run the file and everything seems to be working fine?

Thanks
JP

[KM3K]

Yes, if you installed and it's running fine then you don't need the .cmd file. That file was submitted to me years ago for use with the CD version of ZGI to (somewhat) streamline the installation process. Since I only own the DVD version of ZGI, I can't test this file myself. Some people have had problems with this .cmd file on Windows Vista and 7, which is why don't feature it in my install guide for ZGI anymore (though I mention it and provide it at the bottom of that page). Using my instructions for the install will do the same thing, so I recommend just following that instead of using the .cmd file.