Just a shot in the dark. Maybe someone should put all 16-bit needed DLLs either into WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder or inside the game folder... Are they available separately?

No, and I have no idea what DLLs they are, otherwise I would've tried it. (I already copied the QuickTime 2 DLLs into the program folder so as to keep them out of my system folder where such antiques do not belong.)

Snover wrote:

I'm surprised nobody has made a thread for this one yet.

Interesting. I was also surprised and wanted to do it. I found some threads which can be interesting in this regard:
http://webforums.macromedia.com/director/mess … d1=director%205
http://webforums.macromedia.com/director/mess … d1=director%205

It seems this game maybe needs even some code rewriting in order to work in XP. Complicated task and impossible one for somebody without an experience with Director and Lingo. Is such an expert around here? Just to open the game in Director is not easy but some utilities likeSwifty Xena Pro (can extract dxr files from exe, dll's and other files) or dirOpener (free tool to unprotect macromedia director files) could probably help.
If somebody wants to play with it and doesn´t have the game, demo (has similar problems as the game) can still be found here .
And of course, Inferno would really appreciate if somebody could help with this game 😀

Nono, you see, LINGO is compiled into the EXE; there is no way of retrieving it.

Snover wrote:

Nono, you see, LINGO is compiled into the EXE; there is no way of retrieving it.

Here is an info from dirOpener pages:

"Lingo is a programming language that has been developed by Macromedia to allow you to program things in an easy to understand language. The director engine(that translates machine code into actions on your screen) however does not understand any lingo. Every time you save your movie, close your script window or press the recompile button, your lingo code is compiled into machine code that can be executed by the director engine.
After your lingo code has been compiled director no longer needs it to execute your file, it just needs the machine code it generated from your lingo. For you to be able to make changes to your code however, the lingo is left inside the file.
That is, as long as it's unprotected. Every so often you might make a mistake and accidentally protect a file of which you don't have a backup copy. In this case dirOpener can help you. dirOpener will give you back all your original assets and score structure."

And there is also:
"dirOpener will not open projector(exe) files. I looked into getting any usable information from the '.exe' files and have been unsuccessfull so far. UPDATE: Swifty tools actually made a tool (Xena Pro) to extract dxr files from exe, dll's and other files. You'll find it at: http://buraks.com/swifty/. Using his tool will give you dxr files that dirOpener can then open back up for you."

------------
So I used Xena for extracting files and dirOpener for unlocking them and now I can open Amber files in MacromediaDirectorMX 9.0.

Amber in Macromedia Director 9.0.

Infamous "Handler not defined" error in the game:

And the same error when Amber is opened in Director:

Ah, nice. So perhaps, there is hope after all..hmm..
*prepares to install Director MX*

Yes, hope (almost) never dies. 😉

Geez Louise!
Well y'all have certainly got my attention!!:D

I've been able to view all the files separately as well but can't get them to run together as a game. Sure would appreciate any assistence.

ps you've got a terrific site. I'm no where near as advanced as you guys are 😮 ...but I'm learning ...thanks so much

Inferno

It is a good news, Inferno is also here. Welcome, I know your site (thank you for it) and I thought you would find a way here someday, it's a small world after all 😀 Amber is sadly still long way from cracking. It currently waits if Colin switches from preparations to installing of Director and then... We will see 😀

Jiri wrote:

It is a good news, Inferno is also here. Welcome, I know your site (thank you for it)

😮 It is I who should be doing the thanking, Jiri.

and I thought you would find a way here someday, it's a small world after all 😀

yes, it is.
I've been watching this site for about a year. But didn't want to post until I gained more experience.

Amber is sadly still long way from cracking. It currently waits if Colin switches from preparations to installing of Director and then... We will see 😀

I await with baited breath.

Inferno

infernoj13usa wrote:

It is I who should be doing the thanking, Jiri.

Hey, founders and moderators of this site, this compliment belongs to you 😉

infernoj13usa wrote:

I await with baited breath.

Colin? Keep our hopes alive. 😉 At this moment only possible solution for Amber except of dual-boot is VirtualPC.

Glark glark glark, fine, I installed Director...

Jiri wrote:

Infamous "Handler not defined" error in the game:

I recieved an interesting email this morning about this subject maybe it might help.

Hello. I see that you are working on Amber.

I found out some information that may be of some help. Some have complained of seeing a script error message when running the game. I read a couple of articles in which script files can be "altered" in folders to make programs work. It seems that these "handler not defined" errors are missing files that may need to be put in the folder manually.

Here is a portion of an FAQ I found:
****************************************************

10. I have installed Gameshow Pro 2 on my Macintosh computer and every time I click on Game 1, I get this error: Script Error-Handler Not Defined-#NewFile1! (This error applies to Game 2 displaying: Script Error-#NewFile2 and with Game 3 displaying: Script Error-#NewFile3).

Due to an oversight in the production of the installation CD for Gameshow Pro 2 for Macintosh, you will need to make the following changes in order to use the registered version of the program:

Within the Gameshow Pro 2 application folder, you will find three folders labeled "GAME1", "GAME2", and "GAME3"--assuming that you have installed all three Gameshow Pro 2 games.

Begin by opening the folder "GAME1". Inside of it you will find a file called "NewFile1.cxt." Make a copy of this file by single-click selecting it and then typing command-D (for duplicate). This will create a new file called "NewFile1.cxt copy". You must now
rename this file simply "NewFile1" (i.e., no ".cxt" extension).

Next, proceed to the folder "GAME2" and do the same thing, only this time the file, which you will be duplicating and renaming is called "NewFile2.cxt" and the name, which you will be changing it to, is simply "NewFile2".

Finally, open the folder "GAME3" and do the same thing to the file "NewFile3.cxt"--duplicate it and rename the duplicate simply "NewFile3".

If you follow these procedures correctly, then, after you have registered Gameshow Pro 2, you should be able create new files in all three games of Gameshow Pro 2 without encountering the error message "Error, Cannot locate the 'NewFile1/ 'NewFile2/ 'NewFile3'".

If you continue to have problems after making these changes, then please call LearningWare Technical Support at 1-800-457-5661 or e-mail support@learningware.com.
*****************************************************


And here is one more article:


*****************************************************
While trying to debug things, particularly using the message window to send >messages I find that often the errors generated don't reflect the problem, for example I find that "handler not defined" usually means there is an error in the handler in question that prevents it from compiling, rather
than it not existing, but I can't find any way of it getting me any more >detail than that. When I do manage to get a proper error dialoge appearing, more often than not it's an error in the Revolution IDE, rather than anything I've written which was initially very confusing as I couldn't figure out where all this code was coming from! I feel like I'm missing something like the "recompile now" button in Lingo.

It may not be the most helpful error message, but the
"handler not defined" error is technical true: if the handler won't compile, there is no handler. Generally scripts are checked for syntax errors whenever you save them. There is at least one way to circumvent this, which the Revolution crew are aware of. If you
get this error, you can probably nail it quickly by copying the handler in question to another object's script (a new button will do). The syntax checker will trigger, tell you what the error is, and you can copy the handler back.

*****************************************************



The following is a list of other "handler not defined"
articles. Perhaps these could be of some use to you.


http://nuttybar.drama.uga.edu/pipermail/dirga … ary/021345.html

http://www.printomatic.com/technote.cfm?technoteid=23

http://www.intellitools.com/techsupport/techt … bl_wikerror.htm


The email ends there. Thought it might open up some new avenues here. Also I knwo someone who is speaking with the original programs for the game ...perhaps we can get them to write a patch or at least grant license to do so.

Inferno

and some that I found as well:
[url]http://www.lingoworkshop.com/artic ... icle12.asp[/url]
http://www.zeusprod.com/technote/errors.html

Would need to probably get the uncompiled LINGO code. Then again I really don't know enough about Director to say much, other than, I can't figure it out. 😉

Hi guys,

Please excuse the bump of an old thread... I have just started poking at this game.

What I have figured out so far...

"Minimum 3MB Memory required" - this is a bug in the game. It incorrectly adds the pagefile avail and virtual avail numbers together causing a DWORD overflow. Fixed.

"xobglu16/32.dll" - these DLLs are stored beyond the natural end of the exe and extracted to c:\windows each time the game is run (Vista doesn't appreciate this much). The DLLs are not useful (see below) so the simple fix was to suppress the creation of these DLLs.

MOVUTILS error - there are 4 x 16-bit DLLs and 2 x 32-bit DLLs that are needed. The game loads the 32-bit DLLs ok and ignores the 16-bit DLLs. The game then errors-out when it needs MOVUTILS (16-bit DLL).

The 16-bit DLLs would normally be thunked by xobglu32.dll but the game does a version check and skips loading this library.

Bypassing the version check results in a list of errors attempting to load xobglu32.dll as it uses a number of thunking functions that don't exist in the NT-generation of Kernel32.

Modifying AMBERHUB.DXR I was able to get the game to attempt to load 32-bit versions of the missing DLLs (no 32-bit versions yet but at least now it is trying to load MOVUTILS using LoadLibrary).

This leaves the hard part... implementing 32-bit versions of the missing DLLs.

BTW - My website (mostly Sierra SCI3 work):
http://www.squirtthecat.com/index.html

Nick

Would be great to see one of your [excellent] patches for Amber as this is one of the few games that Virtual PC/an old machine is required!