Hi! I have been trying to install exult and entering D:\GOG Games\Ultima 7 and D:\GOG Games\Ultima 7 - Serpent Isle as the game paths, however this doesn't seem to work (I end up with just a screen with music and nothing selectable) and as all the online instructions for the correct paths are from back when the games were merged, I'm not sure whether I'm getting the wrong paths or encountering a bug.

What OS do you have? I have Exult installed on my Win 7 64bit rig and it works fine. Might be a silly question, but when trying to play Ultima 7 with Exult are you opening it through GOG's shortcut (which plays via DosBox) or Exult's shortcut?

Hey, thanks for replying! To answer your first question I am using Windows 10 Professional 64-bit, which I believe is supported by the latest updates to the GOG version.

I'm not sure what you mean by opening it with a shortcut, my problem is that upon first setting up exult it asks you to browse to the directories for the game data, and the filepaths I listed in my first post don't work.

if I try to open the exult shortcut after that, all I get is a fade-in and then this static screen with a looping midi (see attatchment, I cropped the screenshot but its just a 1920x1080 black rectangle with that dead center)

Edit: Also, thank you for trying to help even though I forgot to check the "help" box. I was concerned that no one would be willing to try to help without the siren song of 5 completely meaningless points

You're welcome! That's my OS as well so that shouldn't be the issue. Do you know which version of Exult you installed? In their FAQ they suggest using the latest snapshot which is Exult 1.5.x, instead of their official releases, so maybe just uninstall and make sure you downloaded the correct snapshot for Win7.

In their installation guide they wrote some directions if you didn't get the correct locations for U7/SI.
"-Now run exult (exult.exe on Windows) and quit it immediately.
-Edit the configuration file with a text editor (e.g. on Windows use Notepad) and enter the correct paths for the game folders - see 2.3. for details
-Run exult and enjoy the game :-)
Word of advice: Don't mix the files from BG and SI."

http://exult.sourceforge.net/docs.php#exult_config

Right, I'm using the latest snapshot and I saw that but I'm not sure what the correct directories are. I guess that's the main thing I'm asking with this thread.

I just reinstalled Exult this year and looking at my exult.cfg file I can see that Ultima 7 and Ultima 7 - Serpent Isle are not merged so that shouldn't be the issue. The only difference of note that I can see is that your paths for U7 and SI are in a sub folder (GOG Games) and mine aren't. For example, my paths are F:\Ultima 7 and F:\Ultima 7 - Serpent Isle. Also, Exult is installed in the same drive (not sure if that matters). Maybe try moving both games out of the subfolder and see if Exult will recognize them.

Hey,
personally I always make Exult portable, I've never had any problems with it and you'll be able to move your Exult-folder around without having issues with paths anymore.
Maybe it helps:

1. Copy the two folders "Ultima7" and "Serpent" from the GOG-installations into a new folder (the whole folders, not just the content of them)

2. Then install Exult into this folder and choose the two games in the installation process. Start Exult once.

3. After that, go to your appdata/local and copy the contents of the "Exult"-folder there into your installation folder (not the folder itself).

4. Then open the exult.ini (which you copied into your Exult-folder in the last step) and change the paths of "Ultima7" and "Serpent": if in the exult.ini it is something like "c:\games\Ultima7" or c:\games\Serpent", change it to ".\Ultima7" or ".\Serpent".

5. As a last step, create a batch-file to start Exult as a portable version (i.e.: instead of saving your configurations in the appdata/local-folder, it will save everything in your Exult-folder):

5.1. open notepad

5.2. enter the following:

@echo=off
exult.exe -p
exit

5.3. save the file as a ".bat"-file ("save as")

That way Exult should be portable and the paths should work.

One thing to watch in the config files for Exult and Pentagram (probably NuVIE too) is trailing back-slashes on the paths. I'm not sure if it wants them, or doesn't like them, and not sure if it's the same for forward slashes under other OSed (besides Windows) but I do know that I've had issues when the paths didn't look exactly like the engine was expecting in the config. (I believe that Pentagram does want the trailing back-slash on the path to the data, if I remember correctly.) Something to try (and watch out for) anyway.

Hey all, GOG split the installers back up at some point so it's all good now. Everything works now. I just recently installed Exult on this laptop along with several of my friends and we're all playing through Ultima 7 for the first time together :3

A friend who's played via Exult previously throughout the years (on ArchLInux) did say that he remembered when the installers were combined and not being able to get it work either at that time.

The GOG team was going through at one point and merging the installers for all the games that came in the same package and that was just an extremely bad idea on their part.