The Crusader installer won't allow me to put this game with all my other games in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\" folder, which has been the default location for all the other GOG games I've installed.

It tells me that parenthesis and periods are "illegal characters in directory", which is puzzling. Is there an easy way around this, I'd rather not fragment my GOG installs about my harddrive, and I'd really like to have this in my Program Files (x86) directory, instead of the new "GOG" directory located at the top level of my C drive.

The new GOG installers (version 2.0.0 and above) don't allow installation into folders with brackets and full stops (and other special characters). This is because there are some old games that don't like these characters and installation into Program Files (x86) is not recommended with older games as they don't always get on well with UAC and DEP which protect that folder.

As such, the new installers use C:\Games\ I think.

Well that's a tragedy that it won't let me install there. Seems pretty foolish too, since all the other GOG games I've installed--including the original Stronghold Crusader--were willing to install there.

We need the option to install into a proper, 21st century, directory back.

Changing the process on us all of the sudden is not cool.

They've done it for good reasons though -> To ensure best possible compatibility.

Oh, and they are gradually replacing all their existing installers, too, so eventually all games will use the same installer method.

:(

I thought the point of GOG was to make old games truly compatible with new operating systems. Limiting us to a directory at the root of the C drive doesn't do that. I like to keep my program files in my program files directory. It's in the name. Though so is a parenthesis, and GOG doesn't believe in those any longer.

It'd be fairly laughable to see one of the more modern games on here, like Trine, tell me that it can't be installed into a directory whose name contains a parenthesis.

Guys, please, drop this annoying restriction. I don't want to have my new GOG games and my old GOG games in different locations, that's unwise.

Let's get things straight first. GOG do not have the source code for any of the games. Even if they did they are not a game development team. As such, if an old game does not like UAC, DEP or special characters in a pathname then GOG cannot re-code it to make it happy with these newer OS features.

By putting in this install location restriction it prevents old games from experiencing problems due to how Vista onwards has UAC and DEP protecting the Program Files folders, and it stops special characters being used in folder names that might break the game. It also means that the user isn't expected to know about UAC and DEP and how to disable them.

Therefore the restriction makes it much more likely that it will run fresh from install without further tweaking, and that is therefore compatibility with newer OS systems.

If the install directory is truly a problem then why didn't GOG implement this new directory scheme when they made their first round of installers?

When I'm buying a game, I expect to be able to install it where I want, especially when where I want to install it is the directory to which Windows expects it to be installed.

Even using symbolic links would still create an unnecessary, undesired and superfluous directory on my C drive.

BTW, this line that you used, that I've read variations of far too often on these forums, that "GOG doesn't bother to change the source code" isn't a justification for this. It's a cop out, and as such it does not mollify me but rather furthers my indignation over this failing by GOG.

Why do you think? When they first started they were just a very small group, and probably using standard tools to pack the game installers (they use Inno Setup installers). Also, they are a relatively new digital distribution company, so they have learned with time and this is why we are getting the new version installers.

I've also read a post from one GOG member saying that the newest version installers are allowing special characters but only for those games where it doesn't cause a problem. Okay, you've heard that GOG doesn't change source code a lot. Why? Because it is true. And it isn't that they "don't bother" to change it. They can't change it. They don't own the rights to change the source code for starters, as the games do not belong to GOG, GOG just have rights to package them and distribute them. Coupled with the fact that GOG don't actually get given the source code, so how could they even hope to change what they don't have to begin with?

And with all due respect, it isn't a cop out. An old game from before the days of restrictive Windows UAC and DEP didn't have to face those restrictions so no code was needed to handle them as they didn't exist! Now you put that game on a new OS which has UAC and DEP but the game still doesn't try to handle it. It can't because it doesn't know what UAC and DEP are, let alone how to handle them. What do you expect GOG to do? Click their fingers and like magic old games run flawlessly handling OS constructs that they were never coded to handle? That would be expecting the impossible. What GOG can do is work around these compatibility issues, and that is exactly what they do.

Note that UAC and DEP are just one compatibility aspect. Another would be old versions of DirectX that new OSes just don't have. Vista, 7 and 8 run DX9 and up. What about games that used earlier DirectX versions, or even 3DFX? That's where graphics wrappers come in, like nGlide for 3DFX, and DDFix for Thief 1 and 2.


Anyway, if you think it is a failing from GOG, fine, don't use GOG, nobody is making you after all. Tell you what, you set up your own digital distribution company and see if you can get game developers to give you their source code so that you can change it to make it work on new OSes. Good luck with that.