How to make reinstalling a breeze.

[_spitfire 0]

I have been playing this game since the first day the pre-release beta demo was released. It's all I play. I have all the original, separately released CD's, i.e. "Cold War C.", "Red Hammer", "Resistance."

For someone as lazy as I, having to reinstall all of these as well as the various patches, addons and mods is about as inviting as head-butting a brick wall.

As I am also not very arty or creative, and can't contribute to this community as much as I would like, I thought I would write a little guide to make reinstalling the game an absolute snap!

For those who didn't know, network administrators create Microsoft Installer Packages (.msi files) for rolling out software on multiple client machines accross the network. This saves them the trouble of manually installing and configuring programs on each machine. Creating an .msi file for Op-Flash. allows you to re-install the entire game, fully configured with whatever addons and mods you like, in one simple click. Msi files also have the ability to repair your installation should some minor problem pop up..

If anyone is interested in knowing how to do this, just let me know and I will post some step by step instructions. As i said, I'm quite lazy, so I won't bother if there is no interest, but I am happy to write one up otherwise.

If there is any interest, what format should I make the guide in? (Word .doc, .html, plain .txt file, etc.)

To delve further into this area yourself, download and install this freeware program;

http://www.ondemandsoftware.com/SP_Download/wiLE2003.asp

The instructions contained in it are quite simple, and most of you will be able to work it out for yourself. One note to be aware of is the requirement for a "Clean Reference Machine." You do not need to have a "Clean Machine" if you are making this package just for the PC it was created on.

Also make sure you always keep a seperate copy of your game user profile. If you do reinstall using your .msi, your profile will be reverted to the state it was when you created the .msi package. This is a very minor oversight and also as simple as just copying and pasting it somewhere safe.

Let me know what you all think.

[=MH=FritzDaKat 0]

That just rocks IMHO, especialy as it's something that will only work on the original system and not able to install on other machines (Theft is soooo gay) If I had one, I'd give you a prize.

***Edit: By the way, whats the big difference between doing this and just making the usual backup via windows?

[_spitfire 0]

Firstly, this cannot be considered as any form of piracy.  You will still need your CD to start the game, and you will have to already have the software in anycase.  Furthermore the size of the final package is almost the same as your entire OperationFlashoint folder, i.e. Massive.

To answer your question on backing up: To successfully backup any program you need its registry additions.  You may include the registry or SystemState data, in your backup, but along with that you will be getting the registry information for every program on your machine.  If you were to restore this registry, you would overwrite the current one.  Any programs or updates (including windows ones) installed after your backup image would no longer work properly if at all.

Also, as I mentioned, .msi installed programs have the ability to repair themselves, should any files become corrupt.

Lastly, I'm not going to defend against the piracy suggestions any further.  This is a legitimate method for installing programs, and is accepted as such across the entire I.T. industry.

I know that you weren't accusing me of anything, but I don't want that sort of debate here, I'm just offering to contribute something.

[=MH=FritzDaKat 0]

But theres no need to defend it against the topic of piracy as you already explained how it wont be enabling people without an authentic disk to play the game,

I really do think it's a handy idea, especialy as My install was less than normal with my GOTY pack..There were two periods per disk where the installer took a five minute break and completely froze my system for that time, I thought I had a bad disk for a while there, but after nearly 40 minutes, I got it all together, this would save me from ever having to go thru this mess again.

[sanctuary 19]

Edit after reading again the forum rules

Despite the usefullness of this procedure that seems to make reinstall very easy and that get me interested , i dont think this discussion will have a long life, as it can be used for making backups.

Quote[/b] ]2. Rules of Contents

§1)Discussions about Operation Flashpoint's copy protection or copying, backing-up, hacking, cracking or reverse engineering Operation Flashpoint will not be tolerated and such discussions will be deleted immediately. Any breach of this rule may result in the poster no longer having access to the forum.

[ale2999 0]

great idea! show us how its done! I cant count the hrs spent reisntalling after I formatted!

[Major Fubar 0]

Edit after reading again the forum rules

Despite the usefullness of this procedure that seems to make reinstall very easy and that get me interested , i dont think this discussion will have a long life, as it can be used for making backups.

Quote[/b] ]2. Rules of Contents

§1)Discussions about Operation Flashpoint's copy protection or copying, backing-up, hacking, cracking or reverse engineering Operation Flashpoint will not be tolerated and such discussions will be deleted immediately. Any breach of this rule may result in the poster no longer having access to the forum.

Discussion of backup is OK, as long as the method used would not allow two machines to simultaneous play the same copy of OFP.

The backing up rule more directly relates to things like overcoming copy protection on CDs etc.

I have read this topic and think it is within forum rules, but any other mods are free to close it if they can see a potential for piracy here.

[_spitfire 0]

Quote[/b] ]I have read this topic and think it is within forum rules, but any other mods are free to close it if they can see a potential for piracy here.

That's fine.  I have no intention of "rocking the boat" at all.  I will write it up tonight, and if the topic isn't locked by tomorrow, I'll post it.

[benu 1]

You could also just export the two registry keys containing the cwc and resistance keys and burn your whole ofp directory onto 2 (or more) cd-r(w). To reinstall you just copy the content of the cds onto the harddrive and click onto the reg file. I have done that before. Seems more simple to me than an msi installer but ymmv.

[sanctuary 19]

Discussion of backup is OK, as long as the method used would not allow two machines to simultaneous play the same copy of OFP.

The backing up rule more directly relates to things like overcoming copy protection on CDs etc.

I have read this topic and think it is within forum rules, but any other mods are free to close it if they can see a potential for piracy here.

That is good to hear , as this .msi method seems very efficient to re-install everything easily from just one installer , it has all my interest.

How is the compression ratio with this installer file , is it advantageous in front of the method of benu (so is it possible to have only one CD with the .msi burned on it instead of the 2/3 cd if you want to save your whole OFP directory) ?

[=MH=FritzDaKat 0]

And also, how good of a compression ratio have you generaly noticed using winzip/rar ect. for squashing down those Mb's? And if you have done so, had you noticed any data loss / corruption as a result?

[_spitfire 0]

It's at the following link for those interested.

If changes are required, let me know.

The Flash Install

This was not meant to be life changing, just time saving.

@ Compression issue;

Not a huge saving.  My complete package is 1.08GB.  WinRAR drops this to 750MB.  Although I have no reason to compress it as I have both a DVD burner, and a ridiculous ammount of HDD space.  I have never bothered to backup my .msi package.  I have it on a removeable HDD, which I can hot-swap.  You may be able to burn yours to an 800mb CD if your drive supports that.

@ benu's suggestion;

This may indeed work.  But by just adding the two registry settings suggested, the install will not appear in the Add / Remove programs, and may not update when applying new patches.

Also from examing the various entries created when making these packages, there are more created then just those two.  You may only need those two to run the game, but I prefer to have things as official as possible in order to avoid complications.