Gruntz on a thumb drive

[GooRoo]

After waiting about two hours for a security scan (and watching the scan of my Gruntz folder) I decided to see about migrating Gruntz off my main hard drive and onto a removable thumb drive. That way the tens of thousands of files associated with Gruntz (which I KNOW are safe!) would not be scanned over and over again.

It worked! Now all of Gruntz is on a 4GB thumb drive (for me), and it plays just fine (with CD-ROM still required). I have all of the supporting files ... the extracted animations, etc. ... on the thumb drive, along with all of the 500+ Custom Levels and their supporting documents. And all of the files supporting the web site, and this Forum, as well ... with over 1.55GB still free ... room for expansion.

I am considering distributing "Gruntz Extraz" on a thumb drive, for the cost of the thumb drive (about $12, the last time I purchased one) plus postage. (If anyone is interested. )

[Zu]

Be careful! I was told that thumb drives (or pendrives as we call them) wear out over time, and eventually you may encounter a situation when you can no longer access your files after a few years, maybe even a year if you're accessing them many times a day.

A portable drive would be a much safer option, even if more costly.

[GooRoo]

I also have an external hard drive, which contains a copy of each of the thumb drives that I have. That hard drive is normally turned off, except when I am actually using it ... and the thumb drives are removed after use, so that virus scans cannot access any of them.

[GooRoo]

Today I created a thumb (flash) drive with Gruntz on it, and took it to the next room where my wife's old XP computer is, and tried it out.

It worked!

I tested with an old, small (and easy!) puzzle, and it worked fine. (I need to re-hook her sound boxes in order to get the full benefit, but I was able to play the game again!)

Next, I need to get my preferred Paint program to work under XP (via the same thumb drive) so I can once again make "View the map!" components to complete the images for the 21 Announcements I just finished today. And not just do the screen grabs, but even test the actual play!

Yippee!

[GooRoo]

Continuing the (sad) saga of my attempt to get back into playing Gruntz and doing the sort of maintenance things I did for submissions, I have a new set of problems.

1. Paint,net does not run under XP
2. The Microsoft Paint program under XP does not recognize the clipboard as a source
3. The other Paint program my wife had doesn't seem to work either

So I have not had any success today in playing and creating a "View the map!" element for the puzzle I started with as an experiment.

Gruntz goes belly-up when the small map results in default screen size, and I attempt to scroll around to do screen grabs. I will try expanding a map to the minimum 32X24 tiles, and see what happens then.

[swietymiki]

Maybe this version of the program will work?

www.oldapps.com/paint_net.php?system=windows_xp

[GooRoo]

Oct 14, 2017 7:25:48 GMT -8 swietymiki said:

Maybe this version of the program will work?

www.oldapps.com/paint_net.php?system=windows_xp

Thank you for that link! Attempting to download it now ... but it is going very slow.

[GooRoo]

The download times out, and is cancelled. I will try again when I return home from my wife's doctor appointment.

[swietymiki]

I just checked, the download really doesn't work for some reason. But this one does: filehippo.com/download_paint.net/15781/

[GooRoo]

Oct 14, 2017 7:49:17 GMT -8 swietymiki said:

I just checked, the download really doesn't work for some reason. But this one does: filehippo.com/download_paint.net/15781/

Yes! Download successful. Now I just need to copy it to my sneaker-netting thumb drive, and install it on the XP computer.

A Big Thank You!

[GooRoo]

Progress(?) Report:
The version of Paint.net I downloaded required SP3, which had not been applied to the XP computer, so I need to find an older version w/o that requirement.

My wife had a version of PrintShop that allowed me to paste a clipboard image, trim it, and Save as... part 1 of 4 that will be required. Unfortunately, the CL I chose to experiment with had my Grunt immediately 'under fire', with no safe place from further (long range!) attacks, and I failed to survive long enough to do grabs of the rest of the map.

I will search for my preferred Paint.net that WILL install on the XP computer, and try again (maybe with a different puzzle). Since my first screen grab included my lonely Grunt's location, I may test my nimble(?) fingers on positioning the map to one of the other three corners and do a 'prt sc' when the flashing "Press any key ..." is NOT displayed, to complete the map. I can add in the Grunt image back here on this laptop, to show what it will look like before coming under attack.

[GooRoo]

Apparently the XP computer has been around far longer than I realized. The 2011 version of Paint.net still requires XP SP3 of Vista SP1. So I tryinh yet another version, in hopes of finding one that WILL install on the computer.

[GooRoo]

So Far, every version of Paint.net I have tried requires XP SP3, so I have now downloaded three even older versions, and will try them backwards to the oldest version, until I find one that will install.

Progress ... BAH! Just changes that make perfectly functional programs unusable. Only the fact that the XP computer is off-line, isolated from 'improvements' makes my continued enjoyment of Gruntz even possible.

USELESS!!! The versions that do not require XP SP3 ... are partial install files that require on-line access to get the rest of the program files. So ... I can't get there from here!

I guess I will have to learn to use the clumsy picture edit program already on the system ... even though it is anything BUT user-friendly. Nertz!

[Zu]

Don't give up just yet. All you have to do is downloading the Service Pack, such as from here: www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/software/svpk/2008/04/windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-plk_7CBE718131E9C71B322F1149E86BEDBA351BA11C.exe

[GooRoo]

Oct 15, 2017 8:15:55 GMT -8 Zu said:

Don't give up just yet. All you have to do is downloading the Service Pack, such as from here: www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/software/svpk/2008/04/windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-plk_7CBE718131E9C71B322F1149E86BEDBA351BA11C.exe

The installer spun its wheels for a while, then said something about the free version being unable to ..." so nothing was accomplished. I checked the PC status, and found it is SP2, so am now searching through the old Paint.net install files for the latest SP2 version available. But the download is timing out, so still no luck.

[GooRoo]

Well, the XP computer required me to install NetFrame 2.0 under SP2, then I managed to acquire Paint.net 2.72 (the BETA version I found earlier said the 30 day limit was expired (wonder why) and would do nothing) and it installed just fine. For some reason it didn't understand the result of prt sc, and I had to paste into MicroSoft Paint, and do a SAVE as... before Paint.net could be used to work on it. It was just a test, as my screen grab was mis-timed, and I had the "Press any key...", so the image is unusable. Kludge though it may be, I have means to create "View the map!" images now.

[Zu]

I believe you could considerably speed up the process if you downloaded a program called Fraps, which allows you to instantly create and save a screenshot in a folder of your choice with the press of a single button.

[GooRoo]

Oct 17, 2017 0:18:27 GMT -8 Zu said:

I believe you could considerably speed up the process if you downloaded a program called Fraps, which allows you to instantly create and save a screenshot in a folder of your choice with the press of a single button.

"FRAPS.exe is not a valid WIN32 program" is what I got after downloading it to this laptop, copying it to a flash drive, "sneaker netting" it to the XP and installing it there.

What is worse, every key combination I have tried

• prt sc ... with no other key press
• shift key + prt sc
• alt key + prt sc
• windows key + prt sc

has resulted in the three paint programs available on the XP computer to report that the clipboard is not recognized. One program produces an image of the screen, but gives it a file extension of .sig ... with no option to save it as anything else.

So I am STILL prevented from creating any "View the map!" images for Gruntz, even though Gruntz is now running on the XP computer.