Option 1.) Start the installer, select an install directory, success in 2 minutes tops assuming your OS is not messed up in some other way

Option 2.) Ask GOG to write a launcher and incorporate the full 500+ game catalogue into it, even though the business model normally is "Here is the game in near pristine condition, do what you want with it to make it run on exactly your system today or in the future whichever it may be"

I wish I was a software engineer so that I would know how to make the right choice.

I offered the Support Ticket person to help Gog develop such a launcher if it will setup an open source project somewhere to its liking and the project doesn't take off immediately. I don't think I am unique in having developed these kinds of launchers before, but I have done so from scratch. EDITED: And just to be clear, this kind of launcher would work equally well for all Win32 games. Gog really should be more sophisticated about these things. They are very simple. Nothing compared to the legal problem of wrangling rights to maintain all of these games. It's just a smart Shortcut.

I apologize to everyone. I can't read all of these posts. But a NEW game has nothing to do with the time frame in which it is developed. It has to do with if its used, and if its being sold today, as a product, that one assumes will work. If the game cost more I'd ask for a refund. But for now I will wait and see if anything interesting comes of this.

PS: Also I measure time in my time spent. Not days. I don't care if I am playing Deus Ex in 2000 or 3000. What I do care is if I lose an afternoon to it for no reason.

You contradict yourself as you say you want to spend the least amount of your time getting the game working, but you wanted to know where the .ini files and registry settings were that would need editing because you moved the game directory instead of reinstalling it. It would have taken less of your time to just reinstall the game and let it take care of that than to locate and move .ini files and editing registry settings.

You've wasted more of your time by creating this topic, a support ticket, reading the replies and typing responses than it would have taken to just reinstall the game. It's also very selfish and rude of you to come here and ask for help, then tell the people trying to help that you can't be bothered to waste your time trying the solutions offered. It took me less than 10 minutes to get out my game disk and try to replicate your problem. It would have taken you less time to just re-run the installer and install the game to the proper location.

Doesn't seem like much time to me, if it even is. I even deleted the install file, so installation would take even longer now. It seemed like it took an hour or more.

I assumed users bothering to offer support would know where the pertinent INI files and registry keys are located. If someone needs support, telling them to reinstall is a waste of your time. Because these simple suggestions are already on the game's support page.

If posters gave helpful suggestions instead of clogging a support thread with non actionable information, then others with the same problems could find the page so they don't have to ask the same question. So it isn't a waste of your time or my time if you look at it that way.


EDITED/PS to Gog.com folks: writing your post in a separate window is a real turnoff. Not to mention the Recent Windows restore function is now clogged with countless GoG forum forms.

You started this thread on September 10th. It is now 8 days later. A re-install would not have taken 8 days. In fact, if the installation of Deus Ex took an hour or more then there is probably something wrong with your machine. Or are you including the download time?

As for re-downloading, it is only 431MB.

As long as you've not installed into a protected folder (applicable on Vista and later) such as Program Files then the main ini files will be in \Deus Ex\System\. Look for deusex.ini and user.ini. Not sure you'll find anything of use in them though.

Yet you've told us that you've not even bothered to do this.

A re-install is not non-actionable. Also, comments like this, basically accusing people here of being unhelpful (and jimnms even went to the trouble of digging out his copy to install it and move it to try and replicate your issue), are not going to make anyone want to help you any further. I know I won't be making any further comments in this thread.

If you don't like it, don't use it. Nobody is making you.

All you've done is criticise GOG - GOG need a better launcher, GOG need better support as re-installing is a waste of time, GOG forums are crappy - and now the GOG forum users by saying we've been unhelpful.

You haven't even read GOG's terms and conditions being as at one point you mentioned refund, but as these games are DRM free, once you've downloaded them there is no refund as you can copy the installer however many times you want and to wherever you want. You'd know this if you read the terms.


Anyway, I'm sure you have other things to do rather than getting this great game to work.

If this is indeed a problem do to UAC, for the record I just noticed while fooling with something that the Shortcut Properties dialog has and Advanced... button on Windows 7. While you cannot access "Run as Administrator" on the Compatibility page, there is another box in the Advanced dialog...

I haven't had time to test it, but what's funny is this is only available to Shortcuts. It may not work. Windows is such a mess, Gog.com is less of a company to rely on these kinds of very brittle solutions.

Gog really has no business selling these games if they won't do the utmost to make them work reliably. They certainly have the resources to do so. And baring that an open source initiative could easily crowdsource a solution. Many companies do this. Including Google.

Funny, felt like 15 minutes to me. (Was this comment helpful? Yes No)

Update:

With being able to Run as Administrator. And having searched through the registry for Deus, patching numerous file system addresses, and rebooting, because some if not most of the registry keys were in the Local Machine dept...

Still not happening. I can confirm that the System/DeusEx.ini file is being written to. It recorded the resolution settings to the WinDrv.WindowsClient section. However the game still opens every time (after more than 5 minutes of its splash window) in 640x480 dedicated fullscreen mode.

It's as if it can write to its INI but can't read from it. Well I've set the FullscreenViewport setting manually in the INI file just now. And I see StartupFullscreen. I don't understand why the options don't remember that. Waiting 5 minutes...

Started in a window. Mouse capture could be better, but its serviceable. The custom control configuration has come back. The controls were not customized before moving the file tree. That suggests it was writing to one place and reading from another...

Still doesn't explain why StartupFullscreen isn't saved in the Options Menu, unless "Toggle Fullscreen" isn't what does that.


Bottom Line: its hard to say what is going on. I'm not sure where the controls are saved. But repairing some of the registry keys, all in Local Machine seemed to make them readable. Run regedit.exe and look for Deus. To not start in fullscreen it seems like you must open and hand edit System/DeusEx.ini. Namely [WinDrv.WindowsClient].

Run as Administrator may or may not be necessary. If you launch with a Shortcut you can make it automatically do this, even on a drive that Windows refuses to let you do otherwise for regular executable files, by opening the Advanced... dialog. Presumably this is just as good as right-clicking and choosing Run As in Explorer's context menu.