Don't know how to install DMODS
I just bought a new PC tower and it's got W7. I'm used to 98SE.
I've downloaded a number of DMODs. They're in the main Dink Smallwood folder. They are not zip files, and I don't know how to install them.
When I use dfarc, I can't play any games because it says it can't find one of the tile screens, every single time. Don't have a clue what that means, or how to fix it.
I don't remember how I got some DMODS listed in dfarc, and I don't know HOW to get them listed in the original Dink Front End. I used to do that by opening a folder with the name, like Cheese or Stone. Then I'd unzip the DMOD to that folder. These new icons for DMODS aren't zips, and I don't know how to install them so they'll show up - and WORK - in both front ends.
I somehow got Pilgrim's Quest listed in dfarc TWICE. Don't know how to get rid of it.
I can play PQ, but if I alt-tab to the desktop, the graphics when I return to the game are worse than grainy, and the colors aren't correct.
So I'm doing something wrong. What?
I've downloaded a number of DMODs. They're in the main Dink Smallwood folder. They are not zip files, and I don't know how to install them.
When I use dfarc, I can't play any games because it says it can't find one of the tile screens, every single time. Don't have a clue what that means, or how to fix it.
I don't remember how I got some DMODS listed in dfarc, and I don't know HOW to get them listed in the original Dink Front End. I used to do that by opening a folder with the name, like Cheese or Stone. Then I'd unzip the DMOD to that folder. These new icons for DMODS aren't zips, and I don't know how to install them so they'll show up - and WORK - in both front ends.
I somehow got Pilgrim's Quest listed in dfarc TWICE. Don't know how to get rid of it.
I can play PQ, but if I alt-tab to the desktop, the graphics when I return to the game are worse than grainy, and the colors aren't correct.
So I'm doing something wrong. What?
Hi. The new .dmod files are actually .tar.bz2 archives, but the extension is supposed to associate them with DFArc so that you just double-click them and they install to your Dink Smallwood directory as normal with one click. They don't do anything when you double-click them?
As for problems playing the game, the only version of Dink I've gotten to work properly in Windows 7 (besides Dink HD, which has lots of DMOD compatibility problems) is GNU FreeDink. You should avoid the color problem if you play the game in true-color mode (there's a check-box in the DFArc frontend).
As for problems playing the game, the only version of Dink I've gotten to work properly in Windows 7 (besides Dink HD, which has lots of DMOD compatibility problems) is GNU FreeDink. You should avoid the color problem if you play the game in true-color mode (there's a check-box in the DFArc frontend).
They try to play through the original front end. If it isn't on the list, and there's no folder for the game, it won't play, of course.
I've had dfarc set for true color since I got it.
The color problems aren't from dfarc. I can't play anything with that, because it is always missing one of the tilescreens. So far it's useless to me.
When I play with the original front end, most games will play, but with the color problem, and some of the cheats won't work at all. They used to on W98SE. I like being able to set certain stats and have the herb boots. None of it works with the original front end.
When I get this extremely granular appearance, all I can do is play with it, or quit to Windows, restart it at a gamesave. I often switch the screen to desktop for many reasons, and never had trouble with it before.
And how can I rid dfarc of TWO Pilgrim's Quest listings?
I hate W7, and may go back to 98SE. It was reliable. Newer OSs subtract a LOT of control from the user, and I detest that.
Is there any instruction manual for making DMODS work? Thanks for your help.
Holly in Mexico
I've had dfarc set for true color since I got it.
The color problems aren't from dfarc. I can't play anything with that, because it is always missing one of the tilescreens. So far it's useless to me.
When I play with the original front end, most games will play, but with the color problem, and some of the cheats won't work at all. They used to on W98SE. I like being able to set certain stats and have the herb boots. None of it works with the original front end.
When I get this extremely granular appearance, all I can do is play with it, or quit to Windows, restart it at a gamesave. I often switch the screen to desktop for many reasons, and never had trouble with it before.
And how can I rid dfarc of TWO Pilgrim's Quest listings?
I hate W7, and may go back to 98SE. It was reliable. Newer OSs subtract a LOT of control from the user, and I detest that.
Is there any instruction manual for making DMODS work? Thanks for your help.
Holly in Mexico
DFArc's edit menu has an "uninstall selected DMOD" option that should remove any extraneous listings. Then again, it'll also delete your DMOD directory, so if you've only got one of those you might not want to do that. I'm not sure what would be causing it if that's the case.
I don't really know what you mean by "original front end." Back when I used to play (1998-2000) you either ran everything from command prompt or used one of a few unofficial frontends.
Sorry I can't be more help; I'm sure somebody else knows more about this than me.
I do know that if I rename the .dmod files to .tar.bz2, I can extract them manually using 7zip and just put the folders in manually. I have to extract them twice, however, to get at the actual files.
One problem that I had with Windows 7 and the dmod installer is that the User Account Control feature would interfere with installing the DMODs if Dink Smallwood was in the Program Files directory. I fixed this by giving my user account "Full Control" permission to the Dink folder, but that doesn't sound like the problem you're having if they won't even try to install when you open the .dmod file.
I don't really know what you mean by "original front end." Back when I used to play (1998-2000) you either ran everything from command prompt or used one of a few unofficial frontends.
Sorry I can't be more help; I'm sure somebody else knows more about this than me.
I do know that if I rename the .dmod files to .tar.bz2, I can extract them manually using 7zip and just put the folders in manually. I have to extract them twice, however, to get at the actual files.
One problem that I had with Windows 7 and the dmod installer is that the User Account Control feature would interfere with installing the DMODs if Dink Smallwood was in the Program Files directory. I fixed this by giving my user account "Full Control" permission to the Dink folder, but that doesn't sound like the problem you're having if they won't even try to install when you open the .dmod file.
Ah, wonderful Win98SE. No software released today has support for it so don't think about using 98 today for newer software.
Don't play Dink in fullscreen to avoid the colour distortion. Dink Smallwood is an old software and is rarely updated these days, use the latest 1.08 or FreeDink.
Don't play Dink in fullscreen to avoid the colour distortion. Dink Smallwood is an old software and is rarely updated these days, use the latest 1.08 or FreeDink.
Thanks - I did get rid of the extra DMOD. I remember you, cocomonkey, from years ago. I've been a Dink fan for many years. You're more than just a fan. You're competent in making DMODs, which, to me, is pure magic in its own way.
The original front end I refer to is the one which came with the original Dink download.
The "administrative privileges" aspect of this OS is a prime nuisance. Nobody uses my PC but me. Oddly, it's the malware that gets in which is able to bypass that feature.
With my new tower, I also got a used monitor - an old one with a much bigger screen. That could be part of it.
To Quiztis - you're right, but all that means is that planned obsolescence is more powerful than patching and improving 98SE, so it can use the newer software. I've used it for years, and now, with W7, I'm frustrated and furious at all the takeaways. Before going back, tho, I may give Ubuntu a try. Without DOS, I doubt any OS is better than 98SE. DOS itself should have been upgraded, not the OSs that use it.
W98 was a much better OS. The new ones have bells and whistles that I usually don't need or want, but they distract people from what they took away: control. We're supposed to trust Windows to make all corrections.
I learned the hard way. Once I let scandisk fix errors automatically because I had hundreds of files and folders with something wierd attached. What I got was every single file and folder on my system TRUNCATED. I'm still renaming the document files, four years later.
I'm going to try some of the suggestions, and hope one works.
Be back.
The original front end I refer to is the one which came with the original Dink download.
The "administrative privileges" aspect of this OS is a prime nuisance. Nobody uses my PC but me. Oddly, it's the malware that gets in which is able to bypass that feature.
With my new tower, I also got a used monitor - an old one with a much bigger screen. That could be part of it.
To Quiztis - you're right, but all that means is that planned obsolescence is more powerful than patching and improving 98SE, so it can use the newer software. I've used it for years, and now, with W7, I'm frustrated and furious at all the takeaways. Before going back, tho, I may give Ubuntu a try. Without DOS, I doubt any OS is better than 98SE. DOS itself should have been upgraded, not the OSs that use it.
W98 was a much better OS. The new ones have bells and whistles that I usually don't need or want, but they distract people from what they took away: control. We're supposed to trust Windows to make all corrections.
I learned the hard way. Once I let scandisk fix errors automatically because I had hundreds of files and folders with something wierd attached. What I got was every single file and folder on my system TRUNCATED. I'm still renaming the document files, four years later.
I'm going to try some of the suggestions, and hope one works.
Be back.
I think it's a stretch to call any of the mods I released in the old days "competent," but thanks anyway. I appreciate it.
Heh, it's a question of when to adapt I guess. The malware is more potent these days and security is a top priority.
Could you elaborate a bit on which control aspects they took away that only Win98 had, except MS-DOS? (which mainly focused on executing programs and managing files on the hard drive, not to mention a slight learning curve increase due to the absence of a GUI)
Could you elaborate a bit on which control aspects they took away that only Win98 had, except MS-DOS? (which mainly focused on executing programs and managing files on the hard drive, not to mention a slight learning curve increase due to the absence of a GUI)
I have to say that, while I also disliked it when they abandoned DOS (made old games hard to run), not having user accounts of any kind made it impossible to have any kind of security on your machine. Even if you only intend to use the computer yourself, you need to have accounts for internal security reasons, especially if you're going to connect to the Internet with it. That's a deeper problem than you could have taken care of by patching Windows 98.
There's still a point to make about planned obsolescence, though. It's silly that they've already moved on to Windows 8 (I've used it, it's absolutely dreadful). Can't blame you for considering Ubuntu. When I have to move on from Windows 7 I might go back to it or another version of Linux myself.
I've used Ubuntu, and in any kind of Linux you definitely don't want to run as root (the highest level user) all the time. Therefore, you're usually working with limited privileges and have to elevate with a password to do anything that really impacts your system. Microsoft's User Account Control from Windows 7 is just them finally catching up to this concept (though not well, as you've noted). Having said that, if you want control, you have tons of it with Linux. The command line interface is more powerful than DOS ever was (but harder to use). Once you get used to the command line, you might like it as much as DOS. I dunno.
I don't think Windows 7 is that bad of an OS, for the record (you can turn most of the bells and whistles off - I did). The command prompt (cmd) is still there if you want it. It works a lot like "DOS mode" used to (you can make batch files, etc).
Nowadays you can burn OSes like Ubuntu to a Boot CD and boot to it without making any changes to your computer to try it out if you like.
There's still a point to make about planned obsolescence, though. It's silly that they've already moved on to Windows 8 (I've used it, it's absolutely dreadful). Can't blame you for considering Ubuntu. When I have to move on from Windows 7 I might go back to it or another version of Linux myself.
I've used Ubuntu, and in any kind of Linux you definitely don't want to run as root (the highest level user) all the time. Therefore, you're usually working with limited privileges and have to elevate with a password to do anything that really impacts your system. Microsoft's User Account Control from Windows 7 is just them finally catching up to this concept (though not well, as you've noted). Having said that, if you want control, you have tons of it with Linux. The command line interface is more powerful than DOS ever was (but harder to use). Once you get used to the command line, you might like it as much as DOS. I dunno.
I don't think Windows 7 is that bad of an OS, for the record (you can turn most of the bells and whistles off - I did). The command prompt (cmd) is still there if you want it. It works a lot like "DOS mode" used to (you can make batch files, etc).
Nowadays you can burn OSes like Ubuntu to a Boot CD and boot to it without making any changes to your computer to try it out if you like.
Personally I place everything I want to manipulate somehow outside of Program Files, obviously including Dink. Works pretty well and you don't have to mess around with user control settings.
Windows 8 (I've used it, it's absolutely dreadful). Can't blame you for considering Ubuntu.
Windows 8 is really bad. As I see it it is basically windows 7 but with a GUI that has been made worse. It seems like microsoft have decided that making a bad GUI that looks more like one you'd see on a phone makes them sell more phones. Good reasoning, except that my pc is not actually a telephone. Or at least I'm not using it as such.
And Ubuntu is really quite nice. They have really outgrown the pure hobbyist/tech professional phase and made something that works well even if you never touch the console. And if you do touch the console you get more power than you'll ever get in Windows.
Windows 8 (I've used it, it's absolutely dreadful). Can't blame you for considering Ubuntu.
Windows 8 is really bad. As I see it it is basically windows 7 but with a GUI that has been made worse. It seems like microsoft have decided that making a bad GUI that looks more like one you'd see on a phone makes them sell more phones. Good reasoning, except that my pc is not actually a telephone. Or at least I'm not using it as such.
And Ubuntu is really quite nice. They have really outgrown the pure hobbyist/tech professional phase and made something that works well even if you never touch the console. And if you do touch the console you get more power than you'll ever get in Windows.
October 23rd 2013, 01:37 PM
Quizghost
Ubuntu is a great option if you run a low-end PC or don't use software that require lots of gpu and cpu power imo.
About Microsoft, I also think that the design of their latest OS isn't great, it looks too touch friendly and smartphone-ish as previously stated. BUT... It is still identical to win7 on all points, and does things even better. Except for Metro (is it even called that nowadays?), which is why I rarely use it.
People often think that win8 is ALL Metro and looks like a phone and avoid it.
About Microsoft, I also think that the design of their latest OS isn't great, it looks too touch friendly and smartphone-ish as previously stated. BUT... It is still identical to win7 on all points, and does things even better. Except for Metro (is it even called that nowadays?), which is why I rarely use it.
People often think that win8 is ALL Metro and looks like a phone and avoid it.
I've used Windows 8, and the interface is problematic even once you get past that godawful "Metro" thing. I had to install a third-party program ("Classic Shell") to even restore the easy-to-use Start Menu that's been there since Windows 95.
Aye, I also dig the start menu. I use Start8.
Aye, I also dig the start menu. I use Start8.
I use that one too. I tried something called "Pokki" before, but Start8 is a bit less of a resource hog. Still not as good as a real start menu, but it gets the job done. I tried to get used to the metro phone desktop thingy for a while... Bitterclingism aside, that just wasn't a change for the better.
EDIT: Just downloaded Classic Shell. So far, that seems even better... Ooo.
EDIT2: I'm also quite sure I didn't pay anything, so maybe it wasn't Start8. Start Menu 8? May whoever decided to name their stuff the same thing roll down a hill full of nettles.
I use that one too. I tried something called "Pokki" before, but Start8 is a bit less of a resource hog. Still not as good as a real start menu, but it gets the job done. I tried to get used to the metro phone desktop thingy for a while... Bitterclingism aside, that just wasn't a change for the better.
EDIT: Just downloaded Classic Shell. So far, that seems even better... Ooo.
EDIT2: I'm also quite sure I didn't pay anything, so maybe it wasn't Start8. Start Menu 8? May whoever decided to name their stuff the same thing roll down a hill full of nettles.
All this talk about fancy Windows 7 and 8's, and I'm here on my laptop, using good old XP.
All this talk about fancy Windows 7 and 8's, and I'm here on my laptop, using good old XP.
Clearly no one understands the greatness of Windows 95.
Clearly no one understands the greatness of Windows 95.
I had Windows 3.1 on my first computer.
Not gonna lie - it sucked.
Not gonna lie - it sucked.
