Beware Freeware

As Is, No Guarantees, Use At Own Risk, Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.
Anyone who has been downloading software for a while already knows this, and of course there is commercial software that has bugs in it that can screw up your system as well. I was down for a few days due to my DSL software taking out my system registry and all the backups, so I currently have a clean install of Windows98SE. As freeware authors, there are things we can and should do to prevent this type of thing happening with our uploads. I use a winzip self extractor with a batch file for my install, and the big advantage to that over the freeware/shareware click-it executable makers is that it does absolutely nothing to the end user's operating system. I go a step further, I've avoided the use of custom consists in my activities, so adding the PO&N route makes absolutely no changes to the end user's MSTS install, so the end user merely deletes the \portogden# folder, and his MSTS, and his entire computer, is exactly the same as it was before he unzipped po&nver5.zip. No need for complicated "install shield wizard" files that get corrupted and leave orphans in the system registry.
I got two error reports from PO&N5, one was this:

All the activities for PO&N, including that coalmine activity, use the plain-jane BNSF 2081 GP-38. Heaven knows why, KUJU elected to name the single geep engine-only consist "yard_one_player_consist.con". And I have heard of a similar problem before, I think it had to do with a downloaded activity that overwrote the default yard_one_player_consist.con file, and if the engine in the add-on was deleted you got that type of error. I emailed a copy of the default yard_one_player_consist.con to the guy, haven't heard back from him yet to see if that fixed it. Another guy said he had to add "d930gran.con" to get rid of an error message, but d930gran.con is also a default KUJU consist that should be on everyone's install, I don't know what happened to his.So down to the nitty gritty, if you absolutely MUST make alterations to the end user's computer somewhere, include an uncompressed readme file that lists all the files that are going to be altered, to give the end user a chance to back them up first.I'm trying to write a fail-safe batch file to do that with Xtracks, since I haven't succeeded in making it fail-safe yet, I'm not using Xtracks until I do. Same thing with custom consists and rolling stock for activities, I'll make activities with custom rolling stock only when I can be absolutely certain that I provide a way to get rid of everything at once without leaving the end user with orphaned files and error messages that he can't figure out how to get rid of without a complete re-install of MSTS.Now it's time to break out the flamethrower, targeting a guy who uploaded something that nobody - and I mean nobody - was able to get to work at all. Posted questions and emails went unanswered, nobody got it to install, the author wasn't answering. Now there's a new version in the file library that's even worse. I'm talking about Route Buddy of course, Ken Huntley, this well-deserved flame is for you.The only readme in this mess is a compressed htm file, I was able to uncompress it without running your setup.exe, but it doesn't really explain anything about the install, which is what you need to do now. Have Nels take it off the site, and don't upload it again without an uncompressed readme file that lists IN DETAIL every single one of MY system files you plan to alter, and every one of MY dll files that you plan to overwrite with yours. And answer your goddamn email questions when somebody has trouble getting it to work, so far nobody has even been able to install it to see if it even is worth the effort.

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Beware Freeware [View All], sniper297, 10:11 PM, Feb-20-02, (0) RE: Beware Freeware, Southern_Railway, Feb-20-02, 11:08 PM, (1) RE: Beware Freeware, Motley24Crue2, Feb-20-02, 11:26 PM, (2) RE: Beware Freeware, sniper297, Feb-21-02, 00:06 AM, (3) RE: Beware Freeware, rgarber, Feb-21-02, 00:46 AM, (4) RE: Beware Freeware, arabianights, Feb-21-02, 07:33 AM, (7) RE: Beware Freeware, Southern_Railway, Feb-21-02, 08:56 AM, (8) RE: Beware Freeware, ToJu, Feb-21-02, 03:17 AM, (5) RE: Beware Freeware, patm41, Feb-21-02, 07:28 AM, (6) RE: Beware Freeware, sniper297, Feb-21-02, 09:15 AM, (9) RE: Beware Freeware, rgarber, Feb-21-02, 09:54 AM, (10) RE: Beware Freeware, rdamon, Feb-21-02, 10:05 AM, (11) RE: Beware Freeware, rgarber, Feb-21-02, 10:34 AM, (12) RE: Beware Freeware, dvdhoven, Feb-21-02, 02:02 PM, (13) RE: Beware Freeware, kevarc, Feb-21-02, 09:34 PM, (16) RE: Beware Freeware, SirWinstonOBoogie, Feb-21-02, 02:31 PM, (14) RE: Beware Freeware, roeter, Feb-21-02, 03:44 PM, (15) RE: Beware Freeware, JohnCS, Feb-22-02, 00:09 AM, (17) RE: Beware Freeware, mdeming, Feb-22-02, 09:15 AM, (18)

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Southern_Railway
Charter Member

Feb-20-02, 11:08 PM (EDT)

1. "RE: Beware Freeware"
In response to message #0

Jim, I second your condemnation of "Route Buddy". With buddys like that, who needs enemies? I paid $15 for Route Buddy. It worked (somewhat) for two weeks and then said I was unregistered. Email after email went unanswered! On the other extreme, howintheworld products are exceptional and have great technical support.Bill Burnett

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hey i agree with you sniper i couldn't get it to install either waste of timeRobert Steskal
Philadelphia, Pa

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Bill, you may be talking about something else. "MSTS Buddy" by JP Wiseman was a shareware, now freeware, utility for making consists without using the activity editor. "Route Buddy" is supposed to automatically go thru your route and eliminate all the shapes and textures for all the files you didn't use, then make an install file that would copy only those shapes and textures. If you actually got "Route Buddy", and not "MSTS Buddy", to install and actually work, you're the first I've heard of. If you aren't merely confused between the two and actually DID have Route Buddy working, even for a while, I think we'd all be interested in hearing how well it does what it's supposed to do, namely weed out all the object shapes and textures that you didn't use in the route.

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The old version of Route Buddy did install if I remember correctly, but it didn't work after it was. You couldn't select the right directory or something. Never did understand why it was never fixed. And now you say there's another version? Thanks for the warning Jim. I won't even bother downloading it.Rich Garber

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arabianights
Charter Member

Feb-21-02, 07:33 AM (EDT)

7. "RE: Beware Freeware"
In response to message #4

I downloaded Route Buddy Sharewear and got it to work. However, it did tend to quit for no reason, and was singuarly unhelpful. Why would anyone pay for the full version I do not know, especially because if you renmae any route folder to Europe2 then it will work with that route as if it was the original Innsbruck one. Howintheworld is great, and ConBuilder seems to do everything Route Buddy does, but it is not Conbuilder's main feature. And Conbuilder is free..

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Southern_Railway
Charter Member

Feb-21-02, 08:56 AM (EDT)

8. "RE: Beware Freeware"
In response to message #3

Yes, you are right (as usual) Sniper, I was thinking of MSTS Buddy. I'm not familiar with Route Buddy. Too many buddy's around here.

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>On the other extreme, howintheworld products
>are exceptional and have great
>technical support.
>
>Bill Burnett Yes, howintheworld products have a very, very good support! And they have great products as well Torben

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Sniper, I too had that problem with add on programs,, winzip lets you load the file to a user selected directory so you can see what is in the file ( well I do anyway).But those self installers sometime do not..A week ago i downloaded something and the installer corupted the regestry and windows would not boot. So out comes the floppy start up disk and type in scanreg/restore to use a different regestry.. ok it boots fine a few times..then over a 3 day peroid the same thing happens again and again,, ( i always back up the reg. after a install..)
I never found the problem even though i Uninstalled the file that i thought caused the problem..anyway at one point i never could get windows to boot,, so out comes the Format c : command and we start over....It takes me 3 days to load all my software
and windows updates along with msts,,Windows Me is said to fix problems like this with their system restore.. didnt work this time...I wonder if XP will be better in
preventing installers from overwriting operating system files??
My P-4 will have XP on it and from what i read its file system is better layed out to prevent this ...I have Xp installed on another comp. but not much else..but i noticed its start up disk takes 6 floppys so it must copy the whole regestry to boot if you need to.. i havent really looked..
patm41

Patm41

Casino Express Route Designer

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Well, now I know we're talking about two different things, arabian nights. "ConBuilder seems to do everything Route Buddy does, but it is not Conbuilder's main feature.." Nope. ROUTE buddy is supposed to be a ROUTE packaging tool, not related to MSTS buddy, which is a CONSIST builder. Two different programs by two different people that do two different things, but have confusingly similar names. The poor guys at 3D trainstuff are always getting blamed for the many screwups by them other guys, 3Dtrains or something.I know what you mean, Pat, it seems like every programmer on the planet wants to take an axe to my critical files even when it's completely unneccessary. I was trying to antagonize Ken Huntley into jumping into this thread and actually answering for a change, but since he didn't I guess the thing to do is avoid downloading anything with his name on it in the future. I'm just getting disgusted with the whole thing, this route distribution problem has been going on for 10 months now, a bunch of people have claimed to have the solution, and it always turns out to be total crap. I really do not like my own method at all, which is why I keep looking for alternatives, but with all it's flaws I guess we're stuck with Ezstuff until somebody that understands all that peek-poke-push-pop-jump stuff writes something that actually works. Can't really be done with batch files, the .w files contain all the objects, but even if you made something that took those apart to compile a list of all the needed .s files, it's the ace files that take up all the space. And if someone were to use the USmedicine bridge without using the Us2trestle2, the ace file needed for the medicine bridge s file would be missing, so it would be necessary to make something that;
1. Went thru the .w files, made a list of all the shape files, excluding the ones that are supposed to be in \global ( like track sections).
2. Went thru all the .s files in the list (preferably WITHOUT having to decompress every last .s file first!) to make a list of all the ace files needed to texture the shapes,
3. Wrote a batch file (or preferably an exe) to copy only those shapes and textures needed for the route.Having it also look thru the Y.RAW files for the necessary \terrtex files would be helpful too, but it's not nearly as difficult to keep track of the different \terrtex files you use and weed out the uneccessary ones beforehand, and the utility could add the copy commands for those based on a list of the files you have in the \terrtex folder when you run the packager. Trying to do objects manually would drive you nuts tho, I know I DIDN'T use washington station, so I don't need 1.66 megabytes of ace files for that, but I used at least a thousand other objects, and this is a hobby, not a job. I'm sure all the anal types who say that the best way is to keep a list of every single different object you place are still working on scenicking their first tile, so you won't see a route without unneccessary bulk for a long time to come.

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It seems the worst of it is knowing what shapes use other shapes right? That can be solved with a database lookup table of sorts. I thought Dick Van De Hoven did that. Didn't he?Rich Garber

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Thank you for using the WinZip Self Extractor. Like you, I cringe when I get a file that has some cute installer on it.I have avoided installing some add-ons because you never know what is going on.I understand the need for an installer for some of the less DOS savvy folks (I wish there was some sort of 12 step program for us), but having a locomotive show up in you Add/Remove Programs list in your Control Panel is ludicrous!!!Sorry you got bit… I’m afraid of what may be lurking in my registry.Thanks for all your add-ons and support of MSTS
Robert

All your base are belong to us...

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We've gone full circle here. Make it easy to install was the cry in every forum, now its 'make it not too easy.' The outcry to make it easy was heard loud and clear. But an installer is more than just making it easy for the not so friendly to DOS crowd. It gives us some control how the masses put the program/route on their computer. Not everybody reads the instructions the same or performs things the same way. The installer helps to keep uniformity. Route Buddy is the only program that I can recollect which was a total bust. Other than that I can't think of another one. If you are staying away from stuff just because it has an exe attached to it, you are missing out. But again, that's your perogative and I respect that.I believe the intent of Jim's remarks were to goad Huntley to show his face so answers could be gotten. It's a much needed tool and if there's the possibility of it working we would surely jump explore the opportunity. But the bait was not taken so downloader beware, the program doesn't appear to work according to Jim. And that's good enough for me.Rich Garber

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LAST EDITED ON Feb-21-02 AT 02:03 PM (EST)Hi,Some weeks ago Route Buddy appears in the File Library.
I'm always very carefull with these tools, so I unzipped in a temp folder.
I didn't believe my eyes!!! The stuff was Visual Basic5!!!!Which in himself believing idiot of a programmer is using Visual Basic5 for making programs in the time that Win2000 is already old stuff? VisualBasic 6, the last real VB version before .NET dates from 1998, so VB5 must be from 1996.The big trouble with Visual Basic is that when you create a setup program, the packager packages many system related files into the package. You can controll this, but then you must have a thourough knowledge with system files are absolute necessary and which are not.And now the bad part. Many of that files have the same name, but are not the same. The comctl32.dll that come with WinNT is a total different file that come with WinME or Win2K.That is the sh*t with all that VB programs. The program is not bad, but it has parts in it of the system where it is build. And before you know, you get all kinds of error messages, not functioning system stuff.
When you want to distribute a VB program, you have to test it on all Win operating systems that are out now, including all servicepacks and other MS gimmicks. And that is something that a simple amateur has not the money and not the time for.That's why I resist on writing simple VBscripts. Well you lack the glossy windows and all the graphic features, but you it will work and doesn't poke around in the operating systems.Oh, before someone says that I don't know what VB is, I have the two official Visual Basic Certificates, 70-175 and 70-176 and until December-31-2001, I was MCSE+I.Dick van den Hoven

Dick van den Hoven

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I like the selfinstallers for routes, these are much larger that a piece of rolling stock or other addon. To me it makes the installation easier and with the batch file all required files are copied. I so not know what I did, but, I had no problems with the Whitefish or any other route that I have added.
Though, for any thing else I prefer to have a zip file and just copy/move it into the right directory. Gives me more control of what goes where and to make changes that I want, i.e. fix eng and wag files before using them.Kevin ArceneauxKevin Arceneaux
DEFAULT IS FOR DUMMIES
Cry havoc and Let slip the dogs of war.
It's fun being CRAZY!!!!!
Lone Wolf Activities Forum and Activity Packs are on www.3DTrains.com

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SirWinstonOBoogie
Charter Member

Feb-21-02, 02:31 PM (EDT)

14. "RE: Beware Freeware"
In response to message #0

It's trying to replace a critical system file "shdocvw.dll" (which for those who may no know, is the core piece of Internet Explorer!). What an idiot! Why does it need to distribute that?Chuck

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Hello,With regards to self-installers : I can see the reason behind this, and I assume there are lots of users who prefer them.Personnaly, I always unpack the files in a seperate directory so I can see what I've got and make sure it does not interfere with anything else. I know all files say 'backup your directory before installing', but backing up the total Trainset directory each time is no fun.I don't mind self-installers as long as they allow you to select your own path as to where to unpack.There are two things I definitely dislike - and I am quite sure I am not alone in this, so I hope the designers take a note :
- self-installers which force you to unpack in the actual MSTS directory;
- self-installers which create an entry in the registry without telling you and without providing a un-installer.Thanks kindly, Rob Roeterdink

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For what its worth:Demex only installs two files, its exe and the html help file. In registered mode it does write some info to its own key in the registry to retain settings. The installshield does do a few registry things of its own to implement unintall the details of which I am not cognizant of.JohnCS

http://www.digital-rails.com

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What I have been doing with my route for backup is using winzip. I have it set up so all you have to do is extract it to the c drive and it will go to the proper folder. The advantages to this are that if you want to check it out before you run it you can ectract it to a temp folder and you will get a path like
c:\temp\programfiles\microsoft games\trainsimulartor\routes\illinois_branch. If the routre editor screws up (an unlikely and rare event ) rebuilding requires a push of a button. One should never mess with files needlessly. Also please leave the registry alone it is needless for the most part.

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