Vista Client?

[Steelclaw]

I'm looking for a few people to test out a new client. There's nowhere to sign up or anything, but please, if you don't feel at all comfortable with overwriting files or tinkering around, wait until the client gets patched out to Blight. For those brave enough to test untested code that may or may not work as expected, read on!

Okay. Still here? Great! Start with a patch to Blight. Log in, then log out.

Further down this post is a link to a .zip file with an Istaria.exe and a number of .dll files. These files need to be dropped in your Istaria or Horizons directory, overwriting the older ones. It is absolutely imperative that each of the old files be overwritten. (Don't worry, a full scan will bring the old ones back.) Once the files have been extracted, use the new launcher to log in. The new launcher is called launcher.exe and is in your Istaria install folder.

If all goes well, the launcher will not perform a full scan and you will log in.

If all does not go well (especially any complaints about missing dll files or manifest problems), please open a ticket at support.istaria.com under the category of "Failure Reports" and try to include the name of the missing dll or .maura crash log if one is generated.

Once you've logged in, open the fpswindow (/window fpswindow) and verify that you're running build #383.0. Please report your successes here.

The features of the 383.0 client are identical to that of the 382.17 client on Blight. The difference is, it *should* run on Vista (and Vista 64) with no trickery involving disabling UAC, swapping system dll files around, or trying to override system dlls. If any of that has been done to get an older version of the client to run, please undo those changes before testing the new client.

The goal here is to make sure that the client will run when deployed as-is on a plain vanilla Windows install.

Velea's edit: Please read through the thread below so you're up to date with changes before trying this. Steelclaw has posted a new build of the client for testing, and in between there was feedback from those who have tried this client build that are important to know.

Customer Support: You can update all your start menu links and desktop short cut by running the Launcher Upgrade Download from this page: http://community.istaria.com/pg.php/download
** Make sure you run this setup against the same folder where you installed Istaria

[Firebrand]

I can't say for Windows Vista, but it works fine on Windows Seven 64-bits Beta 1 (build 7000).




Great work, guys!

[Zexoin]

works fine on windows 7 here too ! Congratulations, guys, you did it !!! ^_^

[Galdethriel]

So does this mean the dreaded Vista compatibility doodab will soon be a thing of the past? :O

~Galde

[Deth]

Worked for me. 383. Just had to work on some older problem and get the patcher working, but that was not involved with the normal problems.

[Royal]

It's working here with my command line launcher command launcher youknowwhat.
Launcher is still looking for horizons.exe for some strange reason, might be my customized 3years old launcher mixing up. Istaria.exe is running anyway! Nice job
(vista64)

[Firebrand]

Just a side note: the client crashes while character creation once the character name is accepted. No error message, just a crash.
This happened on Windows Seven 64-bits for me and to someone else on the 32-bits version. I haven't tried on Windows XP... yet.

Edit: same crash with Windows XP: client crashes at the end of the creation, but the character is created though.

[Fridlekh]

383 crashes? or 382.17 ? or both?

This was not seen internally during testing of 382.17 so if it's happening, please open a ticket and attach any maura or dmp files generated.

side note: You'll probably need to add an exemption for istaria.exe to your DEP list just like horizons.exe if you're running 64 bit windows and/or have DEP enabled for all programs.

[Firebrand]

It was with v383, I haven't checked with v382.17. I will give a try. And only at the final step of character creation (no problem with normal game): it crashes instead of loading again and sending you to starting area.

My Windows XP is a 32-bits version and DEP is not enable. I'll add istaria.exe to it as well for testing.

Edit: OK, I rolled back to v382.17, on Windows XP: no crash with character creation. Then I tried with v383 again (same character race and gender) and got a crash when it should have loaded to Spirit Isle.

[Barnaby Gump]

Ran fine on my Toshiba Laptop, Vista Ultimate SP 1, Intel Core2 Duo T5450 @1.67GHz, 2 GB memory, 32-bit, 3.5 Windows experience rating, previous versions always crashed in hp60176p.dll on this machine.

[Deth]

For me if I try to use the launcher.exe it deletes a file, I will check it next time and right it down and it will not log in through launcher.exe or webpage. If i copy the files back over and run through the webpage it works fine. Using Windows 7.

[Steelclaw]

Thanks for your responses so far. This is encouraging.

The crash on new character creation is definitely a new bug and it's being looked at.

[velveeta]

make sure, if you are using the new launcher and vista, that you turn off dep for all horizons .exe files and try running the launcher as admin......
just had to reboot for updates and will have to see if the above still lets me get in the first time.........

however, as i am not interested in creating new alts at the moment, i cannot speak to the creation probs....

[Death-knell]

make sure, if you are using the new launcher and vista, that you turn off dep for all horizons .exe files and try running the launcher as admin......
just had to reboot for updates and will have to see if the above still lets me get in the first time.........

however, as i am not interested in creating new alts at the moment, i cannot speak to the creation probs....

dep? Or does it matter if you run as admin all the time?

[Steelclaw]

I hope it's not necessary to run either the patcher or client as an administrator. That's not something that happens by default in Vista. While doing so may "avoid" launch problems, instructing people (who may not understand the risks involved) to disable the safety features of Windows is asking for trouble down the line and something I wouldn't encourage.

As for those who seem to have to run the patcher as administrator, check the file and directory permissions on the Horizons/Istaria directory, its contained files and descendants. It's possible that the installation was created with write access only for administrators -- especially if you did the install as an admin.

There's nothing magical about the patcher or the client that would require admin privileges. Consider something wrong if you need to be admin in order to play.

As for DEP, I have not yet tried the client with DEP enabled for all programs. However, as of now, I can't see any reason why DEP would need to be disabled. If the client is throwing DEP exceptions, it's probably a bug worth reporting.

Oh, and the cause of the crash on new character creation in the 383.0 client has been found (but not yet fixed). It has nothing to do with UAC or DEP or insufficient privileges -- just a bug in new code.

[jerk-o]

I have a question: After the vista client goes live, how easy will it be to start playing if I have to reinstall the game?

[Deth]

Once it goes live you should be able to download the game and patch. If I remember right the problem never was with patching but with starting the game after patching. Once the vista fix is pushed live it should be downloaded with the patching, or may already be in the install file.

[Steelclaw]

Once the new launcher (nevermind the Vista client for a bit) goes live, you won't have to "reinstall". Just copy the game directory to wherever you want it and run launcher.exe. No registry tweaking, no digging for CDs, no (hopefully) redownloading.

When the Vista client goes live, you'll be able to do all this in Vista as well as XP.

That reminds me...

Is anyone here running win2k, 98, ME, or NT4?

[Raisty]

This works for me!!! I couldn't even log into the game at all before. The game would actually just stop running without even a crash. (I was never able to even get to the stage where multiple reboots would work) But the new files work perfectly. Thank you so much!!!!!!

[Venge]

Oh man you are raising my hopes so much Steelclaw haha.

Venge Sunsoar