Horizons Post-Install Update Package
A minor contribution of mine that I've never really announced on the forums is finally getting its own post.
Some folks might have seen it already on the downloads page (http://community.istaria.com/default.aspx?pg=downloads), if not that's where you'll find it. It'sapproximately 125 megabytes in size, and contains all updated and new assets added to the game since the original CD release (that's around 285 megabytes of uncompressed assets).
Suggested usage :
Install Horizons from your CDs or from the downloadable installer.
Download the Horizons post-install update package from the downloads page, and run the executable once it has downloaded.
It will ask for the location of your Horizons directory so if the suggested folder is incorrect, please point it to your installation of Horizons and click the next button.
The updater will then decompress all the assets to your Horizons folder.
Go to the Horizons login site, and run through the web patcher to ensure any updates released since the post-install update package was last updated are applied to your installation.
Q. Why use the post-install update package ?
A. Because downloading lots of small files in a single compressed package is much quicker than downloading lots of small files individually through the patcher.
Q. I don't want to use your installer, are there any other options ?
A. Using a compression utility that can read RAR files (WinRAR @ http://www.rarlabs.comis one example) you can open the post-install update package without running the install script. Then use WinRAR to decompress the package to your Horizons folder manually.
Q. Older versions of the post-install update package created a shortcut to the standalone launcher on my desktop. Why don't more recent versions do this anymore ?
A. If someone hasn't visited the login site to have the ActiveX controls installed, the standalone launcher will not work. To avoid this issue, the post-install update package no longer includes any files related to the launcher.
Q. How often do you update the post-install update package ?
A. Not as often as I would like, but every month or so seems to be the norm. The devs keep pushing out new content and updates regularly so I tend to wait for a quiet period before putting together a new archive.
If you have any questions about the post-install update package or have found a problem with it, please post here to let me know [:)]
