Here is the last release of UltraLaunch if someone wants to give it a try. I have done a little investigating. Looks like UL creates a batch file when you launch DOOM called ULRUN.BAT and it looks like this:

@ECHO OFF
C:
CD C:\GAMES\DOOM1_9
ECHO | DOOM.EXE @C:\GAMES\UL\UL.DAT\RESPONSE.UL
C:
CD C:\GAMES\UL
UL.BAT /1 /RETURN

My guess is that the 4th line is the problem. Like I said, this is an auto-generated batch file that UL creates when launched based on the selected parameters. UL also creates a file called ULRETURN.DAT. Not sure what the function of this file is.

Any work arounds???

fxtech wrote:

ECHO | DOOM.EXE @C:\GAMES\UL\UL.DAT\RESPONSE.UL

I assume you meant this as the fourth line? I think not that this line is the problem.

ECHO is just a screen replay w/o some function remaining.

Maybe you are right, but it seems to launch the program. I've never seen the ECHO command used in this context with a pipe "|" and an @ in the command line...

hmm yes. piping isn't supported by dosbox. So that might be a problem

Thanks, I thought it may be something like that. Any chance for piping support in the future?

Trev[/list]

Maybe. I'm not really sure on how to add it though.

wouldn't it be simpler to invoke freedos under dosbox for piping support?

Then you lose IPXNET.

Yeah good point.

fxtech wrote:

ECHO | DOOM.EXE @C:\GAMES\UL\UL.DAT\RESPONSE.UL

The @C:\GAMES\..... stuff looks like an instruction to DOOM.EXE to read some parameters or configuration options from the RESPONSE.UL file.

Somewhere along the lines, I guess DOOM.EXE is waiting for someone to press ENTER. Piping an empty string with ECHO into the pipe, gives it that ENTER/NEWLINE it is waiting for.

Unless this file is re-created every time, you can try

1) Remove the "ECHO |" and try to press ENTER yourself when DOOM seems to have stalled.

2) Create an empty txt file and use redirection instead of piping:

DOOM.EXE @C:\GAMES\UL\UL.DAT\RESPONSE.UL < EMPTY.TXT

Yea, I thought about trying something like this, but the problem is that the files are created upon launching DOOM and deleted after exiting. I was able to grab the files by running UL out of XP and copying the files to the desktop.

I don't know if any of you have ever used UltraLaunch, but it was by far the best front end for DOOM, DOOMII, and Heretic. You have access to all aspects of the command line functions. Keith Cohen was the Author, and I have contacted him. He is looking for the source code. It was written in Turbo Pascal 7. If he finds the source, I may be able to modify it to be DOSBox friendly.

I know that there were other front ends (I used to have most of them), but they may have the same problem. Anyone else have one working?

Trev

echo | for the enter.

so basicly this command can be split up into 2 parts:
1 echo >tempfile
2 doom @.... <tempfile.

An interresting test (as far as I'm concerned) is what will happen if the disk is write-protected (or all disks are write protected) (this is for on how to implement this piping as > and < are allready supported)

While it would be nice if the DOSBox command line had all the features of the original COMMAND.COM so all BAT-installers and menu-systems etc would work, you should be able to create an even nicer launcher with the help of the graphical DOSBox frontends DBGL and DOG.

Maybe

DOOM.EXE @C:\GAMES\UL\UL.DAT\RESPONSE.UL < NUL:

would do?

Hello all. I'm the author of UltraLaunch. Just ran across this old thread and wanted to post a link to the source code for any that wanted to mess around with it:

http://www.conqsoft.com/misc/ulsource.zip

BTW, here's a patch that I released for the "Eternal Shell" that came with Team Eternal's "Eternal DOOM"... same sort of problem, fixed with the EShell patch -> Eternal Doom Shell .

That pipe "|" is a little undocumented thing that in DOOM will make it so that you don't have to press the enter key when other addon WADs are loaded in at startup. Normally when running the game with an addon WAD, the startup screen will halt with the message "This copy of DOOM has been modified" (or something like that), and "Press enter to continue".

The pipe will make it so you don't have to press enter (the game simply goes through the startup screen as usual), as Eternal DOOM's Eternal Shell launcher adds a lot of things to the game at startup.

ConqSoft wrote on 2011-03-20, 23:28:

Hello all. I'm the author of UltraLaunch. Just ran across this old thread and wanted to post a link to the source code for any that wanted to mess around with it:

http://www.conqsoft.com/misc/ulsource.zip

I'm sorry to dig up such an old thread but I'm guessing that none of you have archived/saved the source code?
The only versions of Ultralaunch I can find are all limited in their features, e.g. only 20 wads can be loaded and they are limited to a single database

Two CDs called Total Ruin and Total Ruin 2 each contain a registered copy of Ultralaunch.
Total Ruin = v1.04
Total Ruin 2 = v2.04

In this case, a simple copy of the installation data will do. You can also open ULINST.CS from the Total Ruin 2 CD with 7zip and extract the UL.KEY file from there.
You can use this key file e.g. with the 2.04 and 2.05 version which are attached in this thread. (The 2.05 version has no improvements to the 2.04 version)
I have not provided the key file because I am not sure if I am allowed to but if someone is interested he should now know where to find it

But i am still interested in the source code. so if someone has archived the above zip i would appreciate it to be notified 😀