Something worth noting about the re-packed DLCs... : IV

» Sun Apr 18, 2010 10:13 pm

Back last year before the Oblivion Downloads site went down for good, I bought a couple of DLC packs, Wizard's Tower, Fighter's Stronghold, Thieves Den and KoTN (which I didn't install now because I have it on the GoTY). After I re-formatted my computer I lost the .EXEs, but figured it would be ok since I could always re-download them. Well, when I tried a few days ago I found out the downloads site was down. With Gstaff's help I was able to contact gamesas and they sent me a zip file with all of the DLC that I ordered. I'm running Windows 7, and as most of you know the DLCs won't install on 7, Vista, or 64-bit XP. For the hell of it, I tried using the .EXE (rather than Universal Extractor), and it worked just fine.

Now, this could be for one of many reasons, the first being that it was re-packed by gamesas in a manner that allows systems running these OS's to install the DLC natively. The other, which seems more likely to me, is that when they are sent, the need for online authorization is disabled because the servers are no longer online. It would seem to me that because of this, it no longer detects what kind security you have based on OS, and installs no matter what.

Either way, it works fine, and though I'd let you know

.

» Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:49 am

Back last year before the Oblivion Downloads site went down for good, I bought a couple of DLC packs, Wizard's Tower, Fighter's Stronghold, Thieves Den and KoTN (which I didn't install now because I have it on the GoTY). After I re-formatted my computer I lost the .EXEs, but figured it would be ok since I could always re-download them. Well, when I tried a few days ago I found out the downloads site was down. With Gstaff's help I was able to contact gamesas and they sent me a zip file with all of the DLC that I ordered. I'm running Windows 7, and as most of you know the DLCs won't install on 7, Vista, or 64-bit XP. For the hell of it, I tried using the .EXE (rather than Universal Extractor), and it worked just fine.

Now, this could be for one of many reasons, the first being that it was re-packed by gamesas in a manner that allows systems running these OS's to install the DLC natively. The other, which seems more likely to me, is that when they are sent, the need for online authorization is disabled because the servers are no longer online. It would seem to me that because of this, it no longer detects what kind security you have based on OS, and installs no matter what.

Either way, it works fine, and though I'd let you know

.

The security features were added by the download site so I'm pretty sure the files that Beth sent you are actually a copy of them without that added (just like the ones on the KOTN retail Disk or the version of stronghold that they gave away the first week it was released ! - Glad to hear they are taking care of people that contact them (probably more to do with GStaff than Beth itself) but still good to see.

» Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:23 am

The security features were added by the download site so I'm pretty sure the files that Beth sent you are actually a copy of them without that added (just like the ones on the KOTN retail Disk or the version of stronghold that they gave away the first week it was released ! - Glad to hear they are taking care of people that contact them (probably more to do with GStaff than Beth itself) but still good to see.

I know this is an old topic but it's what I came to the forums for today to look for. Are you saying that the version on the Wizards's Tower that is on the DLC site will now work on Vista 64 bit? That's kinda annoying since I paid for it 2 years ago BEFORE I had Vista 64 bit and now I can't get it to load.

» Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:10 pm

I know this is an old topic but it's what I came to the forums for today to look for. Are you saying that the version on the Wizards's Tower that is on the DLC site will now work on Vista 64 bit? That's kinda annoying since I paid for it 2 years ago BEFORE I had Vista 64 bit and now I can't get it to load.

If you have the .exe that you downloaded you can get it to work by using the http://filehippo.com/download_universal_extractor/ to unpack the .exe and then unpacking the files that you get from that again with the Universal Extractor (so you run the UE twice and you will wind up with the extracted files that you then just copy\paste to your OB folder and treat like any other mod.

EDIT : It's been awhile but IIRC this is the proper provcedure for extracting the Wizards Tower from the .exe file :

Download and install Universal Extractor (linked above)

Right click on your desktop and make a new Folder (name it what you want)

copy\paste the Oblivion-Wizard's Tower.exe into that new folder on your desktop

right click on the .exe file and select Uniextract here (this option will be there after installing the Universal Extractor above )

A Universal Extractor box will come up with the Installshield Installer Extraction - isxunpack extraction selected press OK

A new folder is created in the folder you have the .exe in named Disk1

Go into the Disk1 FOlder and you will see data1.cab - right click on it and again select Uniextract Here

IT will run for a few seconds and a new DATA folder will be extracted

go into that folder and you will see 2 files (DLCFrostcrag.bsa and DLCFrostcrag.esp)

COpy\paste those 2 files into your Oblivion\data folder -launch the game launcher and select data files from the options go through and find and activate the DLCFrostcrag.esp (just like you would any other Mod .esp file)

Launch the game and you should now have wizards tower installed and running ! (and yes this does work on VISTA and Win7 either 32 bit or 64 bit.)

» Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:22 pm

If you have the .exe that you downloaded you can get it to work by using the http://filehippo.com/download_universal_extractor/ to unpack the .exe and then unpacking the files that you get from that again with the Universal Extractor (so you run the UE twice and you will wind up with the extracted files that you then just copy\paste to your OB folder and treat like any other mod.

EDIT : It's been awhile but IIRC this is the proper provcedure for extracting the Wizards Tower from the .exe file :

Thank you for the tip. I followed your instructions but got to the part where I am to select data1.cab file and extract it but there is no option TO extract it. Apparently when I extracted the Date1 file from the original exe, it extracts it all at once. Did I miss something?

» Sun Apr 18, 2010 10:13 pm

Thank you for the tip. I followed your instructions but got to the part where I am to select data1.cab file and extract it but there is no option TO extract it. Apparently when I extracted the Date1 file from the original exe, it extracts it all at once. Did I miss something?

IS there a Data folder in the extracted files then ? - when you unpack the DATA1.cab it creates a DATA folder (this is actually a combined extraction of the Data1 and Data2.cab files and will have the needed files inside it -- if there is a data folder then just double click on it and you should find 2 files inside of it a .bsa and a .esp file that you need to copy to your Oblivion\data folder.

» Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:18 am

IS there a Data folder in the extracted files then ? - when you unpack the DATA1.cab it creates a DATA folder (this is actually a combined extraction of the Data1 and Data2.cab files and will have the needed files inside it -- if there is a data folder then just double click on it and you should find 2 files inside of it a .bsa and a .esp file that you need to copy to your Oblivion\data folder.

When I do the first unpack, it creates a DISK1 folder. When I open that folder there are files: data1.cab, data2.cab, setup.exe and half a dozen more. There is no data folder. There are no .bsa or .esp files. When I right click the data1.cab, there is no option to unpack it. It's already unpacked.

» Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:51 am

When I do the first unpack, it creates a DISK1 folder. When I open that folder there are files: data1.cab, data2.cab, setup.exe and half a dozen more. There is no data folder. There are no .bsa or .esp files. When I right click the data1.cab, there is no option to unpack it. It's already unpacked.

the data1.cab file is the one you then want to highlight and use UE to extract --- doing so will then create a Data folder ! -- so do the same thing you did on the .exe file on the data1.cab file (ie. I just right click and select UniExtract Here from the popup selections) - This will create the Data Folder that will have the files you need in it.

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc189/JDFanning_bucket/uniex.jpg (Note : the data folder is created after you select uniextract here from that list - it did not exist prior to runnning !)

THe .cab file is a cabinet file and is another form of compressed packed file and universal extractor can be used to extract the compressed files from it so no the file is not completely extracted yet --- If you did not set up the universal extractor to be added to that popup selections box you should be able to run universal extractor form its location on your C: drive (ie. start button - all programs -universal extractor) and then selecting the data1.cab as the file to unpack and where you want it extracted.