Torchlight saved game backup

After playing this game on Steam for a week, I wanted to backup my saved character that I had been building up while playing on my desktop and transfer the save files to my laptop I purchased. I performed a “backup” from the Steam console options, but quickly found that this didn’t transfer my saved files with it. I did a bit of searching and came up with this solution.

Goto Start -> Run -> type “%appdata%” (Enter)

That brings up a Window in the [user/appdata/roaming] directory

Locate the “Runic Games Folder” & Backup the contents inside this folder to copy to other computer

I hope this process helps someone with this same problem. I wasn’t quite sure where to go to find the saved games for Torchlight. These directions are for Windows 7, although I can’t see why it would be different for Vista.

My new netbook: MSI Wind U100-432

Picked up my first netbook this afternoon, and I couldn’t wait to get it home and jump on the net and start downloading all the applications I enjoy. Right out out of the box, I was impressed with the overall size. It was not too big, and not too small, it was just right for portability. The build quality is good for a netbook in this price range. Once I got it setup, I quickly noticed that the wireless LAN light wasn’t on. After hitting up the booklet that was included with the Wind, it mentioned to click a quick launch icon. I checked the programs installed on the machine and couldn’t find anything labeled that as a program or a service. I noticed that the function key had a matching icon to the missing LED on the netbook chassis, and once activated the wireless started working. I thought that MSI could have done a better job in documentation to let you know that it comes disabled out of the box, and to activate it you have to use a function command. I was checking everywhere including the device manager, and it was reporting the internal card was enabled with no problems.

I thought I was set, I jumped on the net, and headed straight for Windows Update, and downloaded the most recent security fixes for service pack three. All of the sudden, without warning after the reboot for the updates, the internet dropped out again. This time to never recover. The function command had the LED lit up, and device manager was reporting that the card was enabled. Weirder yet, I was able to pull an IP from the router with the “ipconfig” command, but still no internet. (This is a fresh install of WinXP SP3) I checked the windows firewall settings, and didn’t see anything being blocked in that list out of the ordinary. Lastly, I turned to Google, and performed a search for possible similar problems people may have experienced. That is when I came across this page. It discussed someone having an exact experience where they actually took their Wind to a computer store to have the wireless LAN card settings looked at. Turns out that MSI let these netbook’s out into the wild with Windows Wireless Zero Configuration utility installed and activated, even though they included 3rd party wireless network utilities installed on the same machine. Looks like the fix is to disable the “Let Windows manage my wireless networks” option within the Windows Wireless Zero Configuration utility, and then download the latest driver from MSI’s support site. Lastly, looks like you edit a .ini file associated with the wireless card driver, and your good to go. Let’s hope that MSI releases a patch/fix in the short future that helps less “techy” folks fix their wireless settings themselves. I will update if this works for me, since I am current throwing this post up while my download from MSI is downloading in the background. Since MSI is a Taiwan based company, their website downloads are super slow, and this particular file is 35MB.

HP OEM Mediasmart EX470: LED Easter Egg!

I came across this on Homeserverhacks.com website the other night. It turns out the folks over at HP have a good sense of humor while adding in their custom UI inside the WHS OS. You can execute a command CTRL+ALT+Shift and then left click the HP Mediasmart LED light control, it will actually open another menu and allow you to select between different LED light shows. My favorite is “Night Rider”. Be sure to check out Homeserverhacks.com for the video, and more how-to’s on making your Home Server unique.

World of Warcraft Authenticator and fresh install of game = FAIL! (Work-around)

Found this out the hard way the other night while installing WoW on my notebook. I ordered an authenticator a couple of months back when they went on sale after the WWI. I found out that when you reinstall the game minus the patches, and try to log in once the expansion is loaded up, it gives you a “disconnected from server” error. The problem is the game is not patched with the authenticator support yet, BUT the game is designed that you actually HAVE to log in first , in order to start the expansion patching process. This is how I got around it.

Since I am a Fileplanet subscriber, I went to and downloaded this patch which patches the game from any version, up to version 2.4.0. You can then log into the game as normal, use your authenticator, and start the patching process to get the game up to the latest version which currently is 2.4.3. Small tip I thought I would share to all those that got authenticators, and re-installed their game.

Microsoft, how many Vista licenses do I have to buy?

I was playing around with Parallels installed on my OSX partition on my Macbook Pro, running Vista in a bootcamp partition in coherence mode, and noticed it flashed the “Activate Windows Now” button on the tasktray. Curious, I clicked the button, and much to my surprise I was greeted with the “Register your copy of Windows now” dialog box asking me to verify the license with MS Genuine servers. What?? I already paid for a full license of the retail version of Vista Ultimate (which is currently already installed, and fully registered on this notebook on my Bootcamp partition) and now since I am using Parallels and pointing that program at the Bootcamp partition, MS wants me to purchase yet another license because it thinks the “Virtual” OS is another hardware box? No thanks. Guess I am stuck with rebooting into Bootcamp unless someone has any ideas how I can deal with this small problem.

Apple Bootcamp version 2.1? If your lucky enough to get it to download.

I recently got a Macbook Pro, and loaded Windows Vista 32 bit on it with Bootcamp. I was in the middle of trying to decide to pickup VMWare Fusion or Parallels to grab files off the Bootcamp partition while in OSX, when I received a notice from the Apple software update manager that there was an update for Bootcamp. I opted to download it with Apple’s download manager, and it got all the way to the end, and then it threw an error saying it couldn’t automatically download it. It suggested that I try to manually download it, so I downloaded it right from Apple’s website. Link The manual download got to 99% and hung there, frozen in space. I never did get the update to download, and I guess I will hit the support forums to figure out what is going on.

EDIT: (September 1, 2008) I was able to successfully download the update, and install it manually. It updates all the bootcamp drivers for all the mac hardware including the video card. Will report back on the performance of the video driver, since I use this notebook to game occasionally.

Bootcamp 2.1

Scrybe to release soon?

I signed up for a beta invite for this new start-up back in September 2006. I added all three of my web based email accounts to increase chances of the beta invite, but never received one. This looks like one of the easiest calendar programs I have ever laid my eyes on. The Scrybe team promised that this thing would be out of beta 6-12 weeks after beta testing that began on October 31, 2006. Does this mean we are looking at an end of January 2007 release? I hope so! You can get more details on this service here

EDIT: (August 1, 2007) Received my invitation to try out iScrybe. Once NDA is lifted, will give details.

Fileplanet’s Vanguard beta “Downloaded file is corrupt” solution

Okay, I downloaded this file from Fileplanet 3 times.. every time I went to extract it, it said “File is corrupt or broken and setup cannot continue” I finally found a work around to get this game extracted. I was using Winrar archiver, which I am sure a lot of people out there use, when I tried to extract the download is when I received this error message. I decided to try out Winzip free version. As it turns out, Winzip standard gave me an error about the downloaded file exceeding 4GB. The solution to this problem is: Download the Winzip 45 day evaluation version. This version will extract the game files flawlessly, and not give you the warning about the 4GB file size. Who cares that it is a trial, I only want this utility to unzip this game for me! On a sidenote, it looks like it only likes to be installed on the primary partition, because it kept telling me I didn’t have enough room to install on my D: partition, but that partition had well over 100GB of unused space.

Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne widescreen support

I installed this game again the other day, and found it very disappointing at 1280×1024 resolution on my new widescreen monitor. I did some research, and I was able to find a hack that allows you to play the game in the popular widescreen resolutions 1440×900 and 1680×1050. I am not sure it supports 1900×1200, but you could always try with this hack. Widescreen is achieved through a registry hack: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III\Video

Edit:
reswidth = xxxx (Make sure you change the default hex value to decimal value)
resheight = yyyy

Your cinematics will appear to be in previous low resolutions, but the gameplay will be in widescreen, but appear to be slightly stretched. Better than nothing for sure!
~Thanks again to Widescreengamingforum for this information

Dungeon Siege II: Widescreen hack

If you own a wide-screen LCD, then you realize that not all games provide support for the stretched resolutions that these modern LCD’s can display. Dungeon Siege II is a great game that has recently had a newer expansion pack released. Once the expansion came out, I quickly learned that my new Dell 2007FWP was limited to 1280 x 1024 within the game video controls. I went over to: Widescreen Gaming Forum and got a few tips on how to customize the game .ini file to play in native 1680 x 1050 resolution. Here is how you do it..

Go to My Documents > My Games > Dungeon Siege 2
Right click the Dungeon Siege 2 .ini file, and open with Notepad
The second line in the .ini file change resolution desired for width
The third line change the desired resolution for height
Now save the .ini file changes before closing, and start up the game
NOTE! When you start game the game menu will still appear to be lower resolution, it won’t be until game fully loads up will you see your new wide screen native resolution
This trick still support ALT+TAB out of game to desktop and back into game with native wide screen resolution

~Thanks again to WideScreen Gaming Forum for the details on how to pull this off, I appreciate it guys!

NTFS or FAT32 format for storage disks or partitions: Windows XP?

I recently was formatting some old IDE hard drives, and decided to put them into an old computer and convert it to a NAS (Network attached storage) device. I have long wondered the difference between these two file formats, and I went searching and came up with these forum posts by some folks on the Windows 98/ME/2000/XP team. Basically, they recommend that you use NTFS if you are using Windows XP, but consider FAT32 if you have other machines across your network that are running Windows 9x/ME or older. Just know, that using the FAT32 file format that it has problems with partition sizes over 32GB, and file sizes over 4GB.

Netgear GA311 NIC 10/100/1000 drivers for Windows Server 2003

I am running Windows Server 2003 on my file server at home, and I wanted to use my Netgear GA311 Gigabit NIC card in this server. As I quickly found out, Netgear’s version of this driver doesn’t support Windows Server 2003. As a matter of fact, if you try to use their driver, Windows 2003 doesn’t even recognize it. I looked it up on Google, and much to my surprise, the top link was to a Newegg product review of the NG GA311, and it said that the card used Realtek’s Gigabit onboard chip and would work with Realtek’s WinXP 8169 driver series. I immediately went searching Realtek’s site, and came across three 8169 drivers. I have posted a picture of the version you want to download, and posted the link to the download selection here

Gothic III: US Retail Patch 1.09?

Are we ever going to see this patch come out? I played the demo, and it was really buggy. I talked with a guy from EBGames today about this game, and he said that people were coming in telling him how incredible it is. I assumed that this meant that the Aspyr had fixed most of the bugs before launch. I guess I was wrong, because my investigations have uncovered that there is a patch v1.09 for the game but it is for EUROPEAN retail packages ONLY. I guess this is what I get for trusting the local game shop with advice knowing firsthand what I have seen with my experience. Given the popularity of this title (scored an average of 6/10) I doubt we will see a US patch anytime soon.

Which brings up another point I would like to make here, I am getting sick of PC games that are rushed to market, if you cannot have a good experience out of the box with a PC game, what is the point? Honestly, over the last six months I have bought: Titan Quest, Fable, Neverwinter Nights 2, Call of Cthulhu: DCoE, Dark Messiah and now Gothic III that have required patches in order to enjoy the game… this is unacceptable and I refuse to buy games at launch in the future becuase of it. I hope that game developers will take more time with their offerings, becuase I know of alot of people that feel the same way about this.

Editing the registry: Changing owner information on Windows XP installation

This is a handy little trick to know, especially if you buy a used computer off someone, and they formatted the disk and the owner information displays something generic like “User” or something similar. If you are like me, you would like to know how to change that information that displays in that box found at: Start/Control Panel/System/General tab — it is easy to do, just make sure you follow the instructions to the letter, becuase it requires some editing of the Windows registry keys.

1) Click Start, then click run
2) Type regedit, and then hit enter or click OK
3) Locate the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
4) To change the company name, do the following:
*In the right pane, double-click RegisteredOrganization. Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK
5) To change the name of the registered owner, do the following:
*In the right pane, double-click RegisteredOwner. Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK
6) Click Exit on the File menu to quit Registry Editor
*Next time you reboot, the changes will take effect

BootVis: How to Optimize?

I wanted to post up a few things I found around the net on this program. I couldn’t find a lot of information about it, so this is the best I could come up with on a “How-To” guide using this little program. Essentially, this is a computer boot manager optimization program, that goes out and cleans up processes that the computer has to do in order to boot faster. This was an old Microsoft tool, but they have since discontinued support on it, and have released this disclaimer here Although I am sure if you know what your doing, there isn’t anything harmful that can come by experimenting with it, and I have never had any problems using it over the last year. You can download it from here

1) Analyzing your system: For optimizing the boot sequence of Windows XP, BOOTVIS must analyze the boot sequence. In order to do so, a reboot is needed!

2) Close all running applications. Next we select from the menu “File” – “New” – “Next Boot + Drivers Trace” You can see here that you are not only limited to optimizing the regular boot sequence, but also the Standby or Hibernate sequence.

3) After clicking the desired option (I started with “Next Boot + Drivers Trace”) a dialog will ask you how many times BOOTVIS should repeat analyzing the boot sequence. 1 repetition will work.

4) Click “OK” to continue – Now a window will appear, showing a count down. Once this reaches zero, Windows will reboot.

5) Windows XP will now reboot. When windows restarts, if needed, login as fast as possible as this might give a slightly distorted graph – it does not have any influence on the optimalisation though!

6) BOOTVIS will automatically restart after Windows complete the boot sequence. Be patient, it will take a few seconds before BOOTVIS appears, showing a graph which indicate the timings. The section (you might need to scroll down) called “Driver Delay” shows you the significant delays caused by drivers being loaded and initialized.

7) Now select from the menu “Trace” the option “Optimize System”

8 ) BOOTVIS will now optimize the initialization of the drivers (some aren’t even needed for your hardware setup) and reboot again.

**After completing this, a reboot will occur again. After reboot has been complete, it will take a while – could be several minutes – for BOOTVIS to complete the optimalisation. After this, BOOTVIS is done and your system is optimized. Tip: after installing new drivers, it might be useful to run BOOTVIS again.

~Special thanks to WeetHet.nl for the posted information