philscomputerlab wrote:

I still have a copy of the old GOG release, I might do a directory listing and post it here. I will also write GOG, and maybe start a petition, because removing installers makes zero sense and is really annoying, once again you get a better product with abandonware / piracy 😒

The inadequacies of what they include with their games is why I stay aloof from GoG. MP3s for CD Audio tracks? Removed installers? No disc images? GoG can stuff its mouth with the shit it provides.

Dominus wrote:

I will sign that petition!!!

Ok it seems there are quite a few existing ones: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site#search=setup

This is has by far the most support: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/include_setu … xe_in_dos_games

Great Hierophant wrote:

The inadequacies of what they include with their games is why I stay aloof from GoG. MP3s for CD Audio tracks? Removed installers? No disc images? GoG can stuff its mouth with the shit it provides.

I wouldn't go that far, because it does depend. A LOT of games come with the full installation CD, either in ISO or BIN/CUE image (Strike Commander, Police Quest 4, Gabriel Knights, Tomb Raider, Pinball series...), but the annoying part is that you only find out after you've purchased the game.

But I understand your point of view, especially when you pay good money. Often you're better off finding CD versions of eBay, often brand-new releases from Sold Out Software and the likes. Early Windows 3D games are the worst. They have been hacked / modded / patched to work under modern systems, which often makes them incompatible with Windows 9x 😵

3D Realms did a great job with their Anthology release. AFAIK all the installers are included, and you Raptor isn't the modern Windows version, but still the original and comes with DOSBox.

I really think that GOG just is not that familiar with how many of these games were setup. While it is nice to get an ISO of many of these games they are obviously not required in many of the games they do. For example the SCI CD games do not require it. All these games require is to have the paths set in the config file. What few SCI CD that had CD checking did it via a batch file, not the interpreter.

It does seem odd that they would strip out setup files. GOG often screws up the configuration and relies on their users to find the best settings to correct it in another release of the same game. the lack of setup files handicaps their users in doing this. Then again, they are not the first to do it. The infamous 2006 VU release of the Sierra compilations severely ripped out such files.

People, uwsound.exe (to choose IRQs, etc) and uinstall.exe (to choose your sound devices) are still included with the GOG release of Ultima Underworld.

No matter how you installed the game (ran the installer, extracted it with innoextract, etc), you have a file in your Ultima Underworld directory named game.gog. That's a CD image. Mount it. On Linux, it's just

1mount game.gog /mnt/cdrom

I hear that Windows users use something called Daemon Tools for that.

Mounting the game.gog CD image reveals a folder named uw. That's the game directory with all the files you need. Copy it somewhere and make sure that you have write access to it. You'll notice that it has the following files:

• uinstall.exe
• uw.exe
• uwsound.exe

Set DosBox up to run uinstall, uw and uwsound (if needed) from that directory. Take what you need (Dosbox settings, PDFs, whatever) from the different directory that GOG originally set you up with, then nuke it.

GOG gives an incredibly strange and bad default setup with the installer hidden away, but everything you need to fix that is included.