Matrix Games Forums

I just installed HCE on my work laptop (shhhhh!) and it works fine except for some odd boxes showing up around platforms in the formation editor. I can live with those.
When I click on the scenario editor however, I get the splash screen then it very briefly shows me the screen where I would pick battlesets before it crashes and puts me back on my windows desktop.

Unfortunately I'm not too savy with computers so am not sure how to find the specs on my work laptop other than it's running XP and is less than a year old so likely has a newer processor and what not.

ORIGINAL: Owl

I just installed HCE on my work laptop (shhhhh!) and it works fine except for some odd boxes showing up around platforms in the formation editor. I can live with those.
When I click on the scenario editor however, I get the splash screen then it very briefly shows me the screen where I would pick battlesets before it crashes and puts me back on my windows desktop.

Unfortunately I'm not too savy with computers so am not sure how to find the specs on my work laptop other than it's running XP and is less than a year old so likely has a newer processor and what not.

[:)]You have my sympathies , I posted the same thing several days ago and got little help. Do you have an older version of harpoon on? I've got both Harp2 and the older version of 97 ( and both the game and editor work fine). [:)]

Owl, please make sure you have a file called harpoon8.dll in your HCE directory.  If you don't, holler, still trying to figure out if a virus scanner is eating it on some machines or if it just vaporizes all on its own [&:]
 
If you do have harpoon8.dll, please grab http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?automodule=downloads&showfile=228 it just deletes HCE registry entries, the one we really care about is HKCR\Software\Matrix Games\HCE\Options\BattlesetPath.  Running the program you download from the above link will reset all of your HCE window positions (sorry) and game settings.

Run that after restarting your machine and before trying to run the scenario editor. 

There is also the 1280 x 1024 screen resolution issue. Violating that limit causes the symptoms mentioned.

Smitty

PS. On my operating system, I "right click" anywhere on the desk top. Select "properties" and then select the "settings" tab. You will see your resolution and can change it

Resolution cannot be 1600 x 1200 or greater for the scenario editor, resolutions like 1400x1050 work without incident.
 
I'll add to the FAQ

ORIGINAL: TonyE

Owl, please make sure you have a file called harpoon8.dll in your HCE directory.  If you don't, holler, still trying to figure out if a virus scanner is eating it on some machines or if it just vaporizes all on its own [&:]

If you do have harpoon8.dll, please grab http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?automodule=downloads&showfile=228 it just deletes HCE registry entries, the one we really care about is HKCR\Software\Matrix Games\HCE\Options\BattlesetPath.  Running the program you download from the above link will reset all of your HCE window positions (sorry) and game settings.

Run that after restarting your machine and before trying to run the scenario editor. 

I DLed the program and ran it - no change, HCE editor comes up with the splash screen, click on that and I very briefly see the screen where you pick battlesets and what not then it all goes "poof" and I am back to the HCE star-up screen (where you pick play, update, forum, view manual, etc).

I then re-booted my computer and re-ran the registry program. No dice - same CTD as before.
Just on a wim I then changed screen resolutions to 1280 x 1024 which is more standard than what I'd been running. No go again.
So I'm still stuck. I seem to be able to run HCE OK, just can't get the scenario editor to work.

By the way - Harpoon8.dll was there where it was supposed to be before I ran any of the above.

Please start the scenario editor (wscenedt.exe) directly from the HCE folder, not any shortcuts, just to be sure.
 
Thanks
 
 

Anyone having trouble getting the Scenario Editor (SE) to run, please download and try out the following program.  You can unzip it anywhere but into the HC directory might be handy.
 
http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?automodule=downloads&showfile=233
 
Send us the results to the address provided in hopes that we can get this all narrowed down.
 
 

Report sent!  I tried opening it directly as suggested.  Same thing - I get the splash screen, then click - see the menu (where you pick battle sets, etc) for about a second then "poof!" its gone.
 

ORIGINAL: Owl

Report sent!  I tried opening it directly as suggested.  Same thing - I get the splash screen, then click - see the menu (where you pick battle sets, etc) for about a second then "poof!" its gone.

I'm still getting just a beep.

Thanks folks, Boomer has a more serious issue than most of the others so it will be an adventure, Owl I think we can get running.  But I'm delayed a little while but will be continuing this weekend with those who sent in reports.
 
 

Tony, Your latest fix for me (a change in the register) fixed the problem. It seems that HCE was not able to work with the NTSF file system on my computer. All is well now.

Happy Holidays to all!

Tony, thanks for all of your help!

Many thanks to Terry for testing many different things (I count 28 e-mail messages)!  We finally stumbled upon the issue he was having.  16-bit programs use the old 8.3 naming convention (MyGoodDc.doc instead of MyGoodDocument.doc), his computer was not writing those short filenames to disk so the SE was not working. 
 
Anyway, Terry spurred me to create the HC SysInfo utility and now a bit of a SE startup troubleshooting guide at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=2449