VOGONS


First post, by James Nix

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Norton Utiliie's WINDOCTOR feature searches for, among other things, invalid path statements in PIF files. The default Glidos installation has two such files: GLIDOS.PIF and GLIDOSF.PIF These get copied into the TR1 directory as well as being copied to the Glidos installation directory.

Both PIF files command line is "GLIDOS.BAT". Well Windoctor sees it as invalid and offers to fix it automatically. It does this by deleting the references. Glidos then fails to start with an 'Unable to create GLIDOS.BAT" message ( that's close to the exact text).

To have and error free Windoctor run and not cause Glidos to fail after Windoctor 'fixes' things try the following. How this is done will depend on your version of Windows so I'll just state what has to be done.

1) Create a new environment variable defined as the full path to the Tombraider directory, ie:

TOMBPath C:\TOMBRAID\

2) In the Glidos installation directory (NOT the Tombraider directory), right click the GLIDOS.PIF file and select properties. The PIF files will have a file typr of "Shortcut to MS-DOS program" with no visible extension (depending on your settings).

3) Select the Program tab and change the command line from GLIDOS.BAT to:

%TOMBPath%Glidos.bat

Click OK.

4) Repeat step 2-3 for the GLIDOSF.PIF file.

5) You may have to re-start for the change to be effective.

6) Run Windoctor again. References which still show up in the restore point files (_RESTORE{......) can be 'repaired' once more to clear them out.

😎

Muad Dib

Reply 1 of 4, by Glidos

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That's useful to know. I might get the main exe to create the files rather than copy them, at some stage.

Reply 2 of 4, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Another thing to remember is to never let WinDoctor "fix things" automatically. Make each choice yourself. WinDoctor is good at finding problems in Windows, but often it's suggestions on how to fix them are bad (some could make things worse).

Reply 3 of 4, by Qbix

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Very very very true....

I remember many many ..........
Ah nightmares .....
registry... aaaaahhhh

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 4 of 4, by James Nix

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Sounds like all of us have made the mistake of "trusting the experts' before (at least once?!). Most of Norton's products are pretty good but an unskilled novice will hear their praises and place blind faith in them. It's compounded by the way WinDoctor presents the fix choices. Something to the effect of:

"Let WinDoctor fix all problems. (Recommended)"

The second option allows the user to pick and choose.

The novice hits ok on question #1 and it's not until the next week that they discover they can't play TR1 anymore (or something else WinDoctor "fixed") and they have forgotten all about the WinDoctor run. Some even schedule it to run unattended and automatically fix whatever it finds (horrors, upon horrors!).

That's when the phone rings in the middle of the night.....

"It just quit working!"

"Well what have you done lately?"

"Nothing, I didn't do anything...I swear!"

Alas... no rest for the weary.

Muad Dib