Matrix Games Forums

I am having real trouble getting a copy of the demo i can use. I have downloaded the demo from every source available on the list and in every case when i attempt to install it i get to file 4 of 5 and get a corrupt install mesage. At this time i do not have the complete text of the message, but will post it soon.

I have tried downloading and installing on a couple of different machines.

machine 1.
AMD 1.5ghz
256 meg memory
40 gig empty drive space
Geforce 2 with 64 meg

machine 2 (office computer)
intel 866
512 meg memory
20 gig space on drive
ATI RAGE XL AGP 2

in both case we are running Win98se with Winzip 9.0

Now, can someone here please address this problem? I know I am not the only person having this problem.

With larger files it´s generally recommmended to use a download client that supports resuming, like for example Getright (one of the few that isn´t spyware or does any oher funny stuff wih your PC) . You can get it at www.getright.com. hat way you can ake sur the download acually finished and the file is complete.

tried getright on both computers downloading from 3 sources and in every case I get the corrupted install message. I am very fustrated.

Nope, the download is NOT bad--it's a zip file and it unzips just fine! If the download were corrupt the zip would have a crc error and not unzip! (In point of fact, I had downloaded it from two different mirrors, and it was after the second one failed that I smacked my head and said: "Doh! the download wasn't bad!")

It's AFTER the files are unzipped when I try to install it, it fails during file 4 for me, too. Granted, the system I am trying to install it on is a real low-end system--I just haven't had a chance to burn it on a CD yet to bring home. The only similarity I see with the post above is that I'm also running Windows 98 SE.

So is it possible someone zipped-up a bad installer and it's on some mirrors and not others? I know when I got it about a week ago I used the australia site and I think the other was in sweden...I just looked now and those don't even show-up on the gamershell list of mirror sites anymore!

I'm trying to get it again from a different site and I'll file compare the two and let you know what I find...

Try just leaving it on file 4. It's not stuck, file 4 is just by far the largest file.

You may be canceling the install when it's proceeding properly.

OK, that last two zip files I have downloaded file-compare to be identical.

The starshatter-demo.exe files are dated 2/27/2004 8:41 PM and are 70,524,928 bytes.

It fails during installation in file 4 with the message: "The installation file appears to be corrupted. Error whilst installing '-2030938375 - shatter.dat'

And they're both consistent in failing at that point. (Which is good, since they're identical!)

And I have 2047 MB Free Disk Space and only 69 MB Disk Space Required so it's not failing because I run out of free space...I also disabled Norton anti-virus and tried both the default directory and c:\stars ...

So whilst it looks cool, I'm out in the cold for now!

Ummm-mm. Might be a conflict between the installer and your system?

If milo approves, I could send (or rather, link to on my site) a copy of starshatter.dat for the demo.

I haven't downloaded the demo, as I can't afford the bandwidth it will take (or the time to play it right now), so I don't know which company's installer is being used.

However, if the installer is InstallShield, and the OS is Win98SE, the install script may be trying to use a version of Windows Installer that is later than that which comes with Win98SE, and other programs that come with a later version of the installer may never have been installed on the system and therefore have never updated the installer. It is unlikely that the downloads would include the Installer program, as it is (mostly) unneccesary for the installation, since most people will have a recent enough version anyway.

If this is the case, there should be an update to the windows installer on either the installshield or microsoft web sites.

Edit: this is the link to Windows installer, in case it helps:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 3BB768148F

It seems that Windows Installer did not become part of windows until Win2k, and in Win98 is an add-on.

ORIGINAL: pterrok

OK, that last two zip files I have downloaded file-compare to be identical.

The starshatter-demo.exe files are dated 2/27/2004 8:41 PM and are 70,524,928 bytes.

It fails during installation in file 4 with the message: "The installation file appears to be corrupted. Error whilst installing '-2030938375 - shatter.dat'

And they're both consistent in failing at that point. (Which is good, since they're identical!)

And I have 2047 MB Free Disk Space and only 69 MB Disk Space Required so it's not failing because I run out of free space...I also disabled Norton anti-virus and tried both the default directory and c:\stars ...

So whilst it looks cool, I'm out in the cold for now!

ORIGINAL: pterrok

Nope, the download is NOT bad--it's a zip file and it unzips just fine! If the download were corrupt the zip would have a crc error and not unzip! (In point of fact, I had downloaded it from two different mirrors, and it was after the second one failed that I smacked my head and said: "Doh! the download wasn't bad!")

It's AFTER the files are unzipped when I try to install it, it fails during file 4 for me, too. Granted, the system I am trying to install it on is a real low-end system--I just haven't had a chance to burn it on a CD yet to bring home. The only similarity I see with the post above is that I'm also running Windows 98 SE.

So is it possible someone zipped-up a bad installer and it's on some mirrors and not others? I know when I got it about a week ago I used the australia site and I think the other was in sweden...I just looked now and those don't even show-up on the gamershell list of mirror sites anymore!

I'm trying to get it again from a different site and I'll file compare the two and let you know what I find...

well i can tell you it is not the installer, as i have the latest version.
still time after time it fails to install. 6 downloads, 6 failed installs with exactly the same error message as quoted above

Well, the demo has been D/L thousands of times, and installed w/o problems AFAIK. Apparently there must be a conflict, somewhere, god knows where.

Have you tried gamespot...?

ORIGINAL: Bigs

well i can tell you it is not the installer, as i have the latest version.
still time after time it fails to install. 6 downloads, 6 failed installs with exactly the same error message as quoted above

Bigs, it seems from your comment that you may have mistaken the Demo download for Windows Installer. If I am wrong, forgive me.

No-one has told me if the demo is packaged with InstallShield or not. If it is not, then all this commentary could be a complete waste of time (though it is probably still relevant if the installation packages were created using the Wise Solutions packaging tool, as the packages created by both these programs create MSI based packages that rely upon the Windows Installer service). [&:]

If it is, perhaps I didn't explain properly:

1. InstallShield (and Wise Package Studio) create installation packages. These packages (i.e. the demo downloads) may assume that a sufficiently recent version of the "Windows Installer" program (a windows component supplied by microsoft) is already on your system, and while some Installshield-created installation packages may include a copy of Windows Installer and will install it if necessary, other installation packages may not include Windows Installer in order to reduce the total size of the package, on the basis that the intended users of the package will already have it, or can get it by other means.

2. Versions of windows prior to Windows 2000 did not come with Windows Installer: Windows 98 SE is one of these systems that do not include Windows Installer as a standard component. However, other programs that can be installed (usually from CD where size is less of an issue) may or may not have installed some version of Windows Installer, and if they did install Windows Installer, may not have installed a sufficiently recent one.

3. Windows Installer is a component not intended to be visible to the average user, as it has no utility beyond installing the modules contained within an installation package (like the demo). Thus, there is no way to determine the version of the Windows Installer without finding "msiexec.exe" in your \windows\system32\ or \winnt\system32\ directory, right-clicking on it, selecting Properties, and selecting the version tab. The version in my Windows 2000 machine is 2.0.2600.1183. If your machine does not have this file, or if the version is 1.x, it means that you do NOT have the latest version of Windows Installer, and the demo installation package may be asking whatever version of Windows Installer you have to do something it was not made to do until version 2.x, or it may be looking for a non-existent component.

4. If you do not have the required version of Windows Installer, it does not matter at all what version of the demo download you have or when you downloaded it if it does not include Windows Installer, which seems to be the case. In which case, you would have to download and install InstMsiA.exe (the Windows Installer installation file) from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 3BB768148F -as I mentioned in my previous post- before attempting to install the demo.

If you already know all this, please forgive my pontificating. If you don't, I hope it helps.

How do I know all this? I am a software developer, and I have had occasion to create installation packages myself now and then. [;)]

Actually AMWILD, I understood exactly what you ment. I too am a long time computer software programmer and although not a windows expert, i understood exactly what was ment by the Win98se install software. As a precausion, i down loaded the version from the MS site and executed it. In fact it says i already have the version form the MS site.

So what am i going to do? i do not know. I really wanted to try the demo. I may have to wait until the full version comes out. that will be a bummer......

Oh, i have tried from every source listed. All the FTP, all the HTML, and gamespot.

You could check the MD5 Hash of the file you downloaded against someone who has a working version.

- Deathifier

well deathifier, you have me there. I have no Idea what an MD5 hash is.
Tell me how to get it and i will post it here for comparision

Thanks in advance

Ok well the MD5 hash/digest basically generates a 128-bit value (in the form of a string) from whatever you give it.

Minor differences in whatever is being hashed results in major changes to the digest value so if the file has errors the hash has an extreemely small chance of still coming up the same.
Compared to CRC the chance is 1/2^128 rather than 1/2^32 of an error slipping past.

You can get a nifty little app that will generate the digest of one file here:
http://www.whitsoftdev.com/md5/

The hash from the demo installer I used (which works):
f9cb7b47a2f03bdf53102094c9faa01c

More info on the algorithm:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1321.txt

If the digests turn out to be the same then the file itself is fine and something else is messing up the install process.

- Deathifier

OK, I get the same digest--so it's NOT corrupted!

Now what? <g>

We're past square one, but where do we go next? Anyone get it installed on Windows 98 SE? (FAT32)

To the devs, is it making some sort of hardware check in the middle of the install process that I'm failing?

ORIGINAL: pterrok

We're past square one, but where do we go next? Anyone get it installed on Windows 98 SE? (FAT32)

Yea, but I have FAT16.

You WHAT?

ORIGINAL: pterrok

OK, I get the same digest--so it's NOT corrupted!

Good

Now what? <g>

We're past square one, but where do we go next? Anyone get it installed on Windows 98 SE? (FAT32)

I just installed it on another machine here, no install problems, ran ok - P600, 512MB RAM, GF2 MX, Win98 SE (FAT32).

To the devs, is it making some sort of hardware check in the middle of the install process that I'm failing?

Doubt it, the install process just extracts and copies files, maybe makes some alterations to the registry (for uninstallation and other settings if needed).

On the odd chance its your hardware run scandisk over it in thorough mode (backup stuff first if you can), though bad sectors should have mucked up the MD5 digest anyway.

- Deathifier

I finally got around to moving it over to a couple of other systems at work. It worked fine on a straight Windows 98 machine, and it also installed fine on a Windows 98 SE with only 64 MB of RAM--it took almost an hour to get it done, but it did it!

So I've got no clue as to why it won't work on the one system. I've burned it on a CD along with a copy of the installed .dat and .exe placed by the install so I can take it home and try it there and actually PLAY it!

Thanks, Deathifier for pointing the way to let me know that it was worthwhile trying to do all that since it wasn't corrupted; sorry Bigs that I can't give you any more clue how to get it to work on your system than on my one work system...