Register forum user name Search FAQ

Gammon Forum

Notice: Any messages purporting to come from this site telling you that your password has expired, or that you need to verify your details, confirm your email, resolve issues, making threats, or asking for money, are spam. We do not email users with any such messages. If you have lost your password you can obtain a new one by using the password reset link.

Entire forum ➜ MUSHclient ➜ Tips and tricks ➜ How to install MUSHclient on Windows 7

How to install MUSHclient on Windows 7

It is now over 60 days since the last post. This thread is closed. Refresh page

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Posted by

Twisol USA (2,257 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #30 on Tue 02 Nov 2010 08:50 PM (UTC)

Message

YmerejO42 said:
In my experience, Windows is *ALWAYS* installed on drive C:, unless it's a really messed-up system, and the root has always been writeable.

I've had one of those really messed-up systems. It's hard to believe there isn't a way to "get" the drive that Windows is installed on: the installers I'd used worked fine.

'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol

Posted by YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #31 on Tue 02 Nov 2010 09:08 PM (UTC)

Amended on Tue 02 Nov 2010 09:14 PM (UTC) by YmerejO42

Message

%HOMEDRIVE% is the Windows variable for which drive Windows is installed on, now if we can convert that...

Actually, setting

InstallDir %HOMEDRIVE%"Games\MUSHclient"

causes it to install to C:\Games\MUSHclient on my computer, but I don't know if the variable is read at compile or execution.

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (23,120 posts) Bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #32 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 03:45 AM (UTC)

Message

YmerejO42 said:

In my experience, Windows is *ALWAYS* installed on drive C:, unless it's a really messed-up system, and the root has always been writeable.

Well if you install to the not-first partition, it won't be C. For example, if you install Vista *and* Windows XP, or Windows *and* Ubuntu.

I have a PC with C: being a non-writeable partition (because it looks unformatted) which actually has Ubuntu or something like that on it. And in this case Windows is on J:

I have started incorporating your suggestions into an improved installer, but don't you think that just putting stuff into C:\Games (or whatever drive) is itself a bit arbitrary? On my copy of XP for example, there is no C:\Games folder.

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #33 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 04:03 AM (UTC)

Message

It is, but it has the advantage of not mixing games (which don't always play nice with the UAC in Vista and Win7) with other programs. Mods and such are much easier to install, as for example Fallout 3 which requires them to be inside a subfolder of the game itself.

Also, as another example, in order to save changes to worldfiles in MUSHclient, you have to run it in elevated mode, which just gets annoying. If it's in another folder, though, they save perfectly well. Unless you're going to institute my suggestion about storing them somewhere in the My Documents folder. Then, as long as all files it may need to write are in that folder, there should be no issues.

Plus, if you look at the root of your drive, you know right away where your games are, since they have their own folder. Makes it easier to find them for mods/backups/whatever.

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #34 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 04:05 AM (UTC)

Message

Twisol said:
I've had one of those really messed-up systems. It's hard to believe there isn't a way to "get" the drive that Windows is installed on: the installers I'd used worked fine.

Just noticed this one, figured I'd answer it. For the most part installers use system variables, for instance %PROGRAMFILES%, which redirects to (windows drive):\Program Files. So the person writing the installer doesn't need to know what drive you have Windows on, the installer detects it itself.

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #35 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 04:07 AM (UTC)

Message

Nick Gammon said:
I have a PC with C: being a non-writeable partition (because it looks unformatted) which actually has Ubuntu or something like that on it. And in this case Windows is on J:

Weird, because when I've installed Windows/Linux in a dual-boot setup, Windows always calls whatever partition it's installed on C:, even if it's the second/third/whatever partition. It just ignores the rest as though they don't exist.

Posted by

WillFa USA (525 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #36 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 03:11 PM (UTC)

Amended on Wed 03 Nov 2010 03:13 PM (UTC) by WillFa

Message

YmerejO42 said:

Nick Gammon said:
I have a PC with C: being a non-writeable partition (because it looks unformatted) which actually has Ubuntu or something like that on it. And in this case Windows is on J:

Weird, because when I've installed Windows/Linux in a dual-boot setup, Windows always calls whatever partition it's installed on C:, even if it's the second/third/whatever partition. It just ignores the rest as though they don't exist.

Windows always calls the boot partition C:. That's the primary partition with a bootsector pointing to a contained NTLDR and NTOSKRNL. Under XP or earlier there's the Boot.ini that may specify an ARC path to a different partition for the other windows Files, with Vista or newer there's a configuration DB.

On Newer systems, this DB is actually on the EFI Partition - the ~100 meg partition that appears first on the disk. Since EFI (Extended Firmware Interface) is replacing BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)

p.s. %SystemDrive% gives you the boot drive. %HomeDrive% can be set by your Net Admin so that you save to a server and not locally.

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #37 on Wed 03 Nov 2010 04:14 PM (UTC)

Message

WillFa said:
p.s. %SystemDrive% gives you the boot drive. %HomeDrive% can be set by your Net Admin so that you save to a server and not locally.

Hopefully, people using MUSHclient will be either playing on a standalone computer, at home, or if they do have a network, they'll know not to install it on a server drive.

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (23,120 posts) Bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #38 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 05:34 AM (UTC)

Message

The current installer allows you to choose a destination directory (which you could easily make to be C:\games\).

Also it remembers what you previously installed into for next time. So, for a one-time change of the installation location, effectively the existing installer will do what you suggest.

However the latest version does include the updated look-and-feel of the installer.

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #39 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 02:37 PM (UTC)

Message

Well, all I ask is that you keep putting up a .zip download, please, so I can continue using my installer. That way, I don't have to remember to change the install location to a place where Vista or Win7 won't continually prompt me for Administrator rights for me to save worldfiles, or aliases, or most other things that I do in the normal course of MUDding.

Plus, remember, if MUSHclient is started in a non-elevated state, Win7 at least won't allow it to elevate "on the fly" to write into the Program Files folder, I believe. So you'd have to elevate it on every run, which would make some people paranoid that you'd hidden some malicious code in the program, and was using that to force them to allow it to run. Not saying that you have, pointing out that some people are paranoid enough to think that way.

Again, as I said on another occasion, if you could modify the source so that the default directory for datafiles is something like <user>\My Documents\My Games\MUSHclient, that would also avoid all of the issues with the User Account Rights. If I knew programming well enough, I'd offer to patch it myself, but I don't, unfortunately.

Also, any luck with getting the help file updated? I tried, but I never had any luck with getting it converted.

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (23,120 posts) Bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #40 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 07:22 PM (UTC)

Message

Well I seem to be getting different results to you. First I made a non-administrator account on Windows 7, then grabbed the latest installer (4.67) and ran that. It asked for an administrator password to run the installer, which is fair-enough I think. Under your plan of installing to C:\games you would expect to have to give permission for that.

After that it asked an install directory so I said C:\games (so it ended up in C:\games\MUSHclient). That worked fine, then I started the program, connected, saved the world file and exited.

I then re-ran MUSHclient - didn't have to enter an admin password. I saved the world file again, no admin password.

So I'm not sure what is really being achieved by your turning my .zip file into another installer.

YmerejO42 said:

Also, any luck with getting the help file updated? I tried, but I never had any luck with getting it converted.

No, but downloading the Windows-supplied help program makes the existing help file run OK (as described on page 1 of this thread).

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #41 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 09:57 PM (UTC)

Message

Quote:
So I'm not sure what is really being achieved by your turning my .zip file into another installer.

I just prefer to have the default installation be in a folder other than Program Files. That way, if I have to reformat my computer (happens more often than you might think), I don't have to remind myself to change the installation folder when I'm installing MUSHclient.

Quote:
No, but downloading the Windows-supplied help program makes the existing help file run OK (as described on page 1 of this thread).

And yeah, the Microsoft-supplied help file reader does read the old format, but 1) it's something extra for end-users to have to install, and 2) it doesn't do any good if you're playing and hit F1 for help. In that case, it tries to launch it with the native help program, which won't read the old format, even if you have the older one installed and associated with the older help files.

In fact (having just tried it), for some reason Win7 refuses to associate older .hlp files with the program, you have to edit the registry in order to do so. But it still won't launch from within MUSHclient, so context-sensitive help is nonexistent.

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (23,120 posts) Bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #42 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 10:37 PM (UTC)

Amended on Mon 08 Nov 2010 10:41 PM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message

YmerejO42 said:

In fact (having just tried it), for some reason Win7 refuses to associate older .hlp files with the program, you have to edit the registry in order to do so. But it still won't launch from within MUSHclient, so context-sensitive help is nonexistent.

Yeah it works fine. I just tried on what is basically a Vanilla Windows 7 environment. I only bought and installed it to prove MUSHclient starts up OK. No registry editing or anything like that.

I just started MUSHclient, and the Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L stuff works. And as you can see from the screenshot, hitting the "Functions" button when editing a script works. And the context-sensitive help works (the "show me what this does" cursor). And F1 works in the usual way.

Maybe you didn't install the legacy help stuff in the recommended way?

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

Posted by

YmerejO42 USA (25 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #43 on Mon 08 Nov 2010 11:37 PM (UTC)

Message

OK, once I got Windows Validation to admit that my copy is legit (Microsoft hates me), I got the Win7 64-bit version, and now it works perfectly. Turns out that the one I had was for Vista 32-bit, and wasn't installing properly or something.

Still think it would be nice to update the helpfiles, but at least now it works. Thanks for the verification on that.

On the matter of moving the world/plugin/logs folders - What do you have to have to compile MUSHclient? I have Visual Studio 2008 Express, would that work? If not, then what would I need to get? Maybe I can help contribute by rewriting part of the code to move those into the My Documents like I've suggested, then it shouldn't matter where MUSHclient is installed. I know, you can change them manually, but I'm not sure the changes would save if you weren't running in elevated mode to start with. If it defaults to a writeable folder, then there's no issue there. Plus it would make it easier to use on multi-user systems, like mine.

Posted by

JackDesert (3 posts) Bio

Date

Reply #44 on Tue 04 Dec 2012 04:36 PM (UTC)

Message

Same technique of installing onto Windows 7 will work on Win8 and I thank you for mentioning it as I was getting pretty ticked off at my logs being empty, my characters being unrunable etc.

The dates and times for posts above are shown in Universal Co-ordinated Time (UTC).

To show them in your local time you can join the forum, and then set the 'time correction' field in your profile to the number of hours difference between your location and UTC time.

263,657 views.

This is page 3, subject is 4 pages long: 1 2 3 4

It is now over 60 days since the last post. This thread is closed. Refresh page

Go to topic: Search the forum

Information and images on this site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License unless stated otherwise.