Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:58 pm

for those of you wanting to try installing on windows 2000 (unsupported, but it was suspected it might work)...

I could even get it to properlly install:

Output folder: C:\zMUD
Extract: cMUD.exe... 100%
Create folder: C:\Documents and Settings\***\Start Menu\Programs\CMUD
Create shortcut: C:\Documents and Settings\***\Start Menu\Programs\CMUD\CMUD BETA.lnk
Can't write: C:\zMUD\sqlite.dll

And I aborted when it couldn't make the first file, after retrying a few times.

Apprentice Joined: 12 Jun 2006 Posts: 106

Looks like you are running zmud while you are trying to install

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:05 pm

Closing zMUD got it to install properly, but CMUD will not load, i just get a succession of errors.

Beginner Joined: 08 Oct 2002 Posts: 20 Location: USA

Same here. Just a nice series of errors on Windows 2000.

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:18 pm

To clarify, I only got two errors.

I get through the splash screen with 5 second delay and hit OK.

CMUD.exe
An error occurred in the application.

So i send in the bug repport, then choose to 'continue application', maybe it'll go away right?

Get the same error message on CMUD.exe again, only this time there is no option to continue, so after sending in another bug report, im left with nothing to do but close.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

CMUD isn't supported on anything other than Windows XP, and eventually Windows Vista. Zugg has said many times that CMUD isn't for the older Windows versions. Sending him bug reports for older OS's will only slow him down in fixing the other issues. :P

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

incompatible dlls maybe. Why he said he was making it for xp and vista etc.

However while they have the same base the sp2 has progressed to the point there are some apps that dont work right.

Might have to run it in an emulator.

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:27 pm

I am aware its not supposed to work on Windows 2000.
I am just making sure there is a thread for it so folks will know its a 'known issue'.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

I was saying that it's already a known issue because of Zugg's former notice/warning about this.

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 9:19 pm

Looks like it's an issue with the theme system. For some theme elements, CMUD is calling the WinXP theme library, which doesn't exist on Windows 2000. It might be something I can eventually solve, but then who knows what else would be wrong. I'm afraid it looks like Windows 2000 just won't be supported, sorry.

Beginner Joined: 08 Oct 2002 Posts: 20 Location: USA

Let me know if anyone tries to run it in an emulator... the only reason I might try it is because my travel laptop uses 2000 and I can't add XP to it.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

VMWARE (Which runs on 2000) installed with XP works just fine.

Novice Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 32

How about an option to disable the themes right from the start? I wouldn't mind not having themes, and I imagine anyone else using Win2000 might not mind either since we're all already used to not having themes (unless one of those people have a third party theme program, I guess) Besides, I imagine we'd all much rather be able to use CMUD without themes than to not be able to use CMUD at all. I suppose that perhaps even a few users of WinXP might prefer to have themes turned off.

Alternatively, wasn't there some dll you could copy from WinXP to enable the themes in Win2000? If so, any ideas where to find that file for those of us without any version of WinXP at all? I think that if we can find something we can do on our side to allow CMUD to run without requiring Zugg to modify the code just for us we would be alright with it. Similar to how people running Win98 had to install MDAC to get zMUD to run, I think.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

well the basic themes package setup is available in windows 2000 (Start --> RUN (themes))

however i think it goes deeper than that. IF it is themes that is. CMUD also has an option with NO THEME. Have you tried that yet?

has something to do with uxtheme.dll i think but i am not positive.

Novice Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 32

It's not about having themes or not, but about having Windows XP's themes engine which is more advanced than Windows 2000 -- which I believe is the same one used by previous versions of windows.

I downloaded a uxtheme.dll file and copied it to system32. Unfortunately, now CMUD and others programs give me an error: "Entry point not found" "The procedure entry point RtlUnhandledExceptionFilter could not be located in the dynamic link library ntdll.dll" I checked with dependency walker and found that uxtheme.dll tries to import several functions in several system files (ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll, user32.dll, gdi32.dll) which are missing in the windows 2000 versions.

Granted, the file I download wasn't the stock version from WinXP according to the website. It had been modified to allow something or other that wasn't available in the stock winxp theme engine.

At this point, in this regard, I think what might be needed is a version of uxtheme.dll specially made to fool a program into thinking it's the real one but without actually modifying anything. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no experience programming dll files, or any sort of advanced windows programming knowledge.

Ohh, I've been doing some googling and just found some forum thread where some guy appears to have been working on porting features from XP to 2k. Need to look further into this.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

Yeah I'm not sure what Zugg will say on this - not sure how deeply ingrained the theme engine is - but it might be possible for him to check OS version at startup and disable all theme calls. If it's easy he probably would do it, if not, I guess finding a work around for it might be your only option.

Novice Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 32

Well, it looks like what I found turned up nothing. They gave up on porting the XP theme engine to 2k. Let's hope Zugg can disable the theme calls without too much trouble when he gets back.

GURU Joined: 26 Jul 2001 Posts: 1958 Location: Canada

I run everything out of VMPLAYER/etc these days.

CMUD works fine under it in a XP guest.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

yeah i still say run it in a virtual machine. It works fine. Many times in betas i do this to prevent permanent corruption to my system. Even though i run on xp and vista 32 and 64 bit.

IF you get that problem you will have to remove the UXTHEME.DLL i just know thats the main theme file for winxp. Unfortunatly i dont have 2k or i would help ya figure out how to make it work.

Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:35 pm

I'm not exactly sure what caused CMUD to fail on Win2000 yet. CMUD uses the same theme engine that was used in zApp, and zApp worked fine on Win2000. So I think there is hope for CMUD, but I won't know for sure until I take a close look at this, and honestly, Win2000 compatibility is low on the priority list. Once CMUD is more stable I'll take another look at this and see if it is easy. But remember that the whole point of CMUD was to only support the latest versions of Windows and not worry about old versions.