Playing HCE on a CD or DVD

[houseband]

Hi,

I've been playing Harpoon (all versions) for years now.
Meanwhile I love HCE.

I have to go to a business-trip in some weeks for about 2 weeks. And now I think about taking HCE with me. But the problem is that I must not install the game on my company notebook. Due to our IT regulations it is impossible.

So I wondered if there was an opportunity to copy the gamefiles to a CD and copy some *.dll's or anything needed to my company notebook.

What would I have to do to play HCE from CD?

Cheers

Thomas

[TonyE]

Hi Thomas
 
Sounds like a fun little project, in earlier versions of HC it wasn't a problem but now we write log files and things that could mess up the works.  In order for the Matrix copy protection to work you do need to be able to make a one-time series of entries in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (which normally requires administrative priviledges).  If you can make that happen I think the rest can be coaxed into working. 
 
I'll definitely try this out in the next few days, if you can verify that you can get the registry changes entered, let us know, if you can't there probably isn't any hope so let us know that as well please.  Of course if someone beats me to the experimenting, please share your findings .
 
 

[houseband]

Hi Tony

thanks for your reply. I think we should try it. So I am waiting for your orders.

By the way - you mentioned in the older versions you think it should have been possible? I still have Harpoon Classic 97 - maybe I could (if this try failes) try it with this verison? The problem was with this version that it doesn't work properly under XP any more.

Cheers

[TonyE]

Okay, will try here [:)]
 
Yes, HC97 should work fine from a CD, it will work on XP, I'll help you with that if HCE from a CD doesn't work.

[houseband]

Hi Tony

once more many thanks!!

Cheers

[TonyE]

Allrighty, after unexpected delays it appears that running from a CD under a limited user account works fine given the aforementioned caveat, that you have to be able to do a one-time registry entry creation.
 
What I did:
1. From my non-limited machine I created a CD with a directory structure matching my HCE install.
    a. i.e. I have a Matrix Games\HCE folder structure on the CD, it isn't neccessary but it is what I did.
2. Copied my HCE directory into said CD structure (this must include the hidden file maga.mg).  I used Roxio Easy Media Creator.
2. Burned my CD
3. From the non-limited machine, use regedit to export the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Matrix Games\Larry Bond's Harpoon - Commander's Edition" registry key.
4. On the work machine (limited machine) import the registry file created in step 3, this will probably have to be done from a user account with administrative priveleges on the machine.
5. Stick the CD in and give the game a whirl. 
6. Do a File\Save As to change the save game location to some area on the hard drive/USB drive you can write.  If you don't have a spot to save scenarios, don't use the autosave capability (Settings\Game Options\Save Every set to 0).
 
Depending upon how restrictive the permissions are on the machine you may have to re-establish window positions and that saved game path each time you start the game.

[TonyE]

Not that it should matter, my non-limited machine was running Vista, the locked down machine was running Windows XP Pro.

[houseband]

Hi Tony,

thanks - I will test this evening when I am back home. Think the most important problem is the regedit.....but I have my limited machine at home so I can test.

I will report.

[TonyE]

Sounds good, and if all else fails, do the same with HC97 except you don't need the regedit part for HC97

[houseband]

Hi Tony!

I did like you described. Problem: I first was very surprised and happy to see that I was allowed to start "regedit" on my limited machine. But I was unfortunately not allowed to do any changes in the structure of the reg. So I was not able to import the file [:-]

Afterwards I did the same with HC97.....and it worked [:)] So my plan is to ask one of our IT-Guys to import the reg (one of the guys not in the head office but in the branch I will visit for my business trip) and then I can play HCE as well because I burned it on the same CD as HC97 [;)]

Many many thanks to you Tony!! [&o]

I will have the opportunity to try maybe this week because I am leaving for another trip to on of our branches and I will take the CD with me.

[TonyE]

Great, thank you for sharing your results, let's hope the IT guy has some mercy, he should be able to see how harmless the entries are.

 

[houseband]

Hi Tony!

I am glad that I can proudly say: It works with HCE!!

I talked to a guy who has the administrator password [;)] although he should not have it [:D] and asked him to login to my notebook and we imported the reg-file.

And HCE works from the CD! Great!

Cheers

Thomas