HALF LIFE 2 question (not a crack request)

[FarCry]

now that i have downloaded all the updates for half life 2, counter strike source and half life source i have the collectors edition dvd rom can i compress them into cab files and replace them with the old ones on the dvd? thus making a dvd with all the current updates after decompression. Is that a vital solution or shall i have to make a second dvd with all the backups of the games mentioned earlier? i will put the new updated steam version if i find an msi installation somewhere instead of the installer. thanks in advance

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hey FarCry,

It might or might not work. I suggest that you create a DVD _ISO_ first, mount it in Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120% and see if you can install the game properly from that! Good luck,

Joe

[FarCry]

hey i thought of using orca.msi in order to change the steam.msi installation if i can add the new files because valve is giving only an installer and not an msi like the one on the dvd. is there any way to alter the setup.exe file in order to put an installation of half life deathmatch? in order to extract the gcf in the steamapps folder like the other source games with an ico too!!!!

it would be great if this can be vital. anyone has tried this? if the setup checks for cab file size then i cant do that. only if i can alter the setup. i will give a try. any prog that makes cab files do you know? i found out that cab files are microsofts compression so its embended on cmd. type makecab/?

god show mercy

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hi FarCry,

Dunno... If I were you, I wouldn't bother with trying to create an _installable_ version of the game. With old games, whose development has been stopped and therefore no more updates are to be expected, I simply install the game, apply all official (!) updates, addons etc., then the no-CD patch for the last update, compress it with RAR (http://www.rarlabs.com ) and burn it onto (back then CD, now) DVD.

Now, if I need some nostalgy, get the DVD, unRAR, (for Windows games) import the .REG file, run the setup/config (not installation!) program and there I go playing!

Joe

[BarryB]

It might be easier to use the backup function in STEAM to archive the files to a DVD or Dual Layer DVD.

There are so many files updated I don't think you could make a new install.

It's probably better to filecopy (or archive) the folder where all the STEAM files are to a DVD. This way you get all the updates too. When you want to reinstall, just filecopy/unarchive it back to you hard drive. I think you have to delete the ClientRegistry.blob file before running STEAM as this stores all the paths of the previous install. When you log into your STEAM account it will create a new ClientRegistry.blob file and you will be able to play the game again. It might also apply any updates you missed in the meantime so you may have to back it up again

[FarCry]

hey for the source games only the gcfs have being updated. so i can replace them with the one from the dvd. now for steam you are right many files have been updated. there is also the platform.gcf which is the steam platform. but i will also swap this and i want to find the new steam.msi of to open msi with orca.msi and replace the files that are in it with the one from the folder

i will try it and i will tell you.

and i was not talking about old valve games. i was talking about source games

[FarCry]

i opened the steam.msi open with orca. there are the files which they are extracted in the specified folder mentioned in the next column. now the point is how can i replace all of the files which are probably in a cab file named w1.cab which is mention in the msi using this msi profile. i can make a cab named w1.cab with all of the files to be extracted how can i alter the files within msi installation like ultraiso which you can make what ever you want to an iso image

[FarCry]

so i have news!!!! first of all it worked. i replaced the cab files of all source games and worked fine. so now i put in a folder the half life 2 deathmatch its too trouble to put it into the hl2.msi and pu it in a cab in order to install it like the other source games. now the only thing that remains is to make a new msi package with the new steam files and use the databases from the old steam.msi. any ides how can i do it?

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hey FarCry,

Isn't Orca able to do _any_ manipulation on MSI packages? Sorry, dunno myself, I haven't used it extensively (yet?)...

Joe

[FarCry]

no with orca you can only manipulate the databases in th msi package. you cannot replace files within. i have to create a new msi package using the databases exported from the steam.msi in order to be everything identical. i have downloaded a lot of msi which produce, alter msi. i will give them a try. i thought of altering the hl2.msi package in order to put an extra option to install half life 2 deathmatch. i dont know if this is possible. last option if i cant do that is to put it in a separate folder and copy paste manually into SteamApps folder

[FarCry]

YESSSSSSSSSSS. i managed to do it finally. who cares about orc? the best prog is qwerty. i added a new component for half life 2 deathmatch an now from the hl2.msi file i can install it. . no i will do the same with steam as i have already extracted the files in the package and replaced them with the new ones.