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PhoenixWright: Why doesn't configuration belong in a program's own folder?
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Darling_Jimmy: Exactly. Spoken like a Mac user. :D
And an old Mac user at that, Unix systems (including Mac OS X) generally do not store config data with the application.
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Miaghstir: And an old Mac user at that, Unix systems (including Mac OS X) generally do not store config data with the application.
Application support files are stored in ~/Application Support/<app name>. It is self contained in that sense. An out of control application will not cause the OS to eat itself.
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AndrewC: Please give me an example of how your registry got corrupted.
Normal use.
Post edited November 18, 2010 by Darling_Jimmy
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Darling_Jimmy: Application support files are stored in ~/Application Support/<app name>. It is self contained in that sense. An out of control application will not cause the OS to eat itself.
Neither would it if it was in the registry as the keys get invoked only when needed.

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Darling_Jimmy: Normal use.
I seriously doubt that. What do you mean when you say corrupted registry?
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Starkrun: can anyone stop proving points and give an example of what your talking about? Cause i have a crapton of GOG games and Ive never had a single issue installing running or setting up one of them.. plus Ive noticed not a single ounce of slowdown on my old machine or my state-o-the-art machine

Stop going off subject and get some valid problems with examples up in here.
Okay.

1. Start Process Monitor. Start Syberia 2's installer. Install the game and monitor the registry at the same time. Useless stuff about dosbox and gogsomething are being added into it. Same goes for the game. It doesn't need a single key to run properly.

2. Installing it adds two crappy icons in the Games Explorer. If Orca was used when making the installer, this would not have been a problem.

3. Make a few saves while playing it. Uninstall the game, and choose to remove the saved games. The uninstallation will end, but the saved games will not be removed.

4. Something I find quite useless too. I see some games have multiple executables, created by GOG probably. Haven't found a game that needs these, for proper compatibility or whatever.

Better?

EDIT: Its not a problem for me personally, as I make my own installers for all GOG / indie / drm-free games, but these small things I think should be fixed. :)
Post edited November 18, 2010 by KavazovAngel
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Miaghstir: And an old Mac user at that, Unix systems (including Mac OS X) generally do not store config data with the application.
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Darling_Jimmy: Application support files are stored in ~/Application Support/<app name>. It is self contained in that sense. An out of control application will not cause the OS to eat itself.
Precisely, it's not together with the application like many old Windows applications and their ini files. Now that I think about it, even old Mac application generally stored their settings in HDD:System Folder:Preferences.
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Darling_Jimmy: Exactly. Spoken like a Mac user. :D
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Miaghstir: And an old Mac user at that, Unix systems (including Mac OS X) generally do not store config data with the application.
Ha, I don't use a Mac, but it's definitely how I would develop an application. I would want the user to be able to dive into whatever configuration I offer. If they want to break the application, that's fine with me - any user messing with a config file is hopefully intelligent enough to use it properly, and they also allow for helpful comments above keys and values.
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KavazovAngel: Okay.

1. Start Process Monitor. Start Syberia 2's installer. Install the game and monitor the registry at the same time. Useless stuff about dosbox and gogsomething are being added into it. Same goes for the game. It doesn't need a single key to run properly.
Do they actually harm anything by being there? Would removing them be more work than is really necessary? Most likely GOG uses a generic but configurable install "script" rather than custom creating each installer, hence why we are seeing stuff that might not apply to a particular game.

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KavazovAngel: 2. Installing it adds two crappy icons in the Games Explorer. If Orca was used when making the installer, this would not have been a problem.
I think we can all agree, this one should not be an issue anymore and it is getting pretty inexcusable that GOG has not fixed this yet.

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KavazovAngel: 3. Make a few saves while playing it. Uninstall the game, and choose to remove the saved games. The uninstallation will end, but the saved games will not be removed.
I'm not seeing this behavior at all. Is there a particular game this happens with for you? With all the games I have tested, not keeping the save games removes everything (file-wise, I didn't check the registry).

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KavazovAngel: 4. Something I find quite useless too. I see some games have multiple executables, created by GOG probably. Haven't found a game that needs these, for proper compatibility or whatever.
Again, I'm not sure what you are referring to here. The only games of mine that have multiple executables actually need those multiple executables. For example, MDK has Mdk.exe, MDK_soft.EXE and gogwrap.exe, all of which are required to run the game (the MDK_soft.EXE is optional, but I chose to install it).

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KavazovAngel: Better?

EDIT: Its not a problem for me personally, as I make my own installers for all GOG / indie / drm-free games, but these small things I think should be fixed. :)
Much better, but with the exception of the Games Explorer bug, I'm not really sure that any of these are things that GOG should dedicate any time to, especially when that time could be better spent getting more critical aspects of the service working properly.
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cogadh: Do they actually harm anything by being there? Would removing them be more work than is really necessary? Most likely GOG uses a generic but configurable install "script" rather than custom creating each installer, hence why we are seeing stuff that might not apply to a particular game.

I think we can all agree, this one should not be an issue anymore and it is getting pretty inexcusable that GOG has not fixed this yet.

I'm not seeing this behavior at all. Is there a particular game this happens with for you? With all the games I have tested, not keeping the save games removes everything (file-wise, I didn't check the registry).

Again, I'm not sure what you are referring to here. The only games of mine that have multiple executables actually need those multiple executables. For example, MDK has Mdk.exe, MDK_soft.EXE and gogwrap.exe, all of which are required to run the game (the MDK_soft.EXE is optional, but I chose to install it).

Much better, but with the exception of the Games Explorer bug, I'm not really sure that any of these are things that GOG should dedicate any time to, especially when that time could be better spent getting more critical aspects of the service working properly.
I agree, they need to spend their resources on other stuff, fixing the site and all that, but I don't get why they don't look at the installers for the newly released games.

Probably as you said, they use a generic installations script, and just add a few things depending on the game.

Oh, and, I've seen the double exe thing with Still Life and Syberia. I see compatibility flags set to the new exe, but I don't see why it is needed, when the same thing can be done to the original exe, and the game works with the original exe just fine.

And the not deleting saved games, with a few games that use the Documents folder to keep the saves. The installer probably doesn't delete stuff from there, only from the installation folder.

One other thing, there are actually a few reference files to DotEmu I believe, in few games' installation folders. Probably GOG got the files from there, or the publisher send GOG those files.
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KavazovAngel: One other thing, there are actually a few reference files to DotEmu I believe, in few games' installation folders. Probably GOG got the files from there, or the publisher send GOG those files.
DotEmu is one of the publishers on GOG: http://www.gog.com/en/catalogue#all_genres/publisher/DotEmu/

I wouldn't be surprised to see references to them in those games, but seeing it in others would be strange.
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KavazovAngel: One other thing, there are actually a few reference files to DotEmu I believe, in few games' installation folders. Probably GOG got the files from there, or the publisher send GOG those files.
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cogadh: DotEmu is one of the publishers on GOG: http://www.gog.com/en/catalogue#all_genres/publisher/DotEmu/

I wouldn't be surprised to see references to them in those games, but seeing it in others would be strange.
I think DotEmu released Syberia / Still Life before GOG, so maybe GOG got the files from there or something, because I'm sure I saw a few DotEmu lines in a particular "launch" file with either of these two games. This is where the double exe also comes from probably, since if you delete that launch file, the new exe doesn't work anymore, it asks for some missing autorun files or something like that (but the original exe still works).

I don't want to assume anything, but it kind of points me to the belief that GOG received the files from DotEmu, and just repackaged them without even checking them.
The installers now seem being compatible with big DPI fonts! Thank GOG!
How did you do? (I'm using Win XP 32) This has been very well done.
(I noticed this with FTL installer)
Post edited December 27, 2012 by ERISS