I know that Steel's Mod M8 for Gunship! is a few years old now, but I have recently "rediscovered" Gunship! (for some reason I found it unplayable when it first came out, but second time around.. ) and I'm trying to use his amazing-looking Mod M8 package.

The trouble is, whenever I try to use Mod M8 to activate any mod file, whether terrain or aircraft, I get this message: "This file is set to be launched by this PDF file. This is currently disallowed by your system administrator."

Can anyone tell me how to overcome this snag, how do I convince my machine that I am its system administrator? For the record, I am running Adobe 9 under Windows XP.

Thanks

Mike

Hi Mike-

Well, well- let's blow the dust off this one, shall we?

This was a fun app to build, especially after Helmut Steel provided some adult supervision on the DOS side of it. It looks like that bit still works fine after nearly 10 years, but the Adobe side has changed.

Acrobat is doing the right thing. The ability to have a PDF file launch an executable was a handy, but dangerous feature. The batch files it is trying to run to change flyable helos could just as easily contain commands to format your HD. Lovely.

So while it should be possible to modify the security settings in Adobe to allow for this all to still work within one specific folder, (Under Edit>Preferences>Security (Enhanced) and Trust Manager), it doesn't actually seem to work. (Unless I need to reboot- didn't try that.) So I'm getting the same error as you, and I am also a local admin. I suspect there is a MS change at work in the operating system.

Hmmm.

It probably isn't worth anyone spending too much time on this. The file swapping approach was used prior to us figuring out how to edit the actual EXE. (And even that approach has advanced light years since my day thanks to Samovar, PSYKLIK, Will Baldwin et. al.) But you can still use ModM8 if you don't mind monkeying around in the basement a bit, but be very cautious if you have other, later GS mods installed. Some of the file names may have changed. Can't remember, to be honest. Make a clean install for ModM8 if you are not sure.

Today's problem is in the User Interface - the Adobe Acrobat file security settings. But all that PDF does is give you a handy way to run individual DOS Batch files in the background to move files around in specific ways. Those files still work, but you'll need to run them manually. Here's how:

ModM8 installs in your Gunship! folder in a new subfolder named "mods". In my case, it is here: C:\Program Files\Microprose\Gunship!\mods. The most important file of all is there in the mods folder - it is called "resetall.bat. Running this file at any time puts everything back where it was before you installed ModM8.

In subfolders under the "mods" folder are all the individual changes you can make. Inside each one is a batch file, such C:\Program Files\Microprose\Gunship!\mods\uh60\uh60.bat . When you run that file, it moves things around or renames them so that the next time you fly a mission involving the Eurocopter Tiger, you fly a Blackhawk instead. Crude. but effective.

The terrains are done the same way. If you execute the mods/ter_win/ter_win.bat file, you get a winter wonderland to fly about in. When your feet get too cold, exit and run the mods/ter_orig/ter_orig.bat file to return to the standard terrain.

Hope some of that helps. I just happened to swing by SimHQ today, but it may be a while before I can check back. Glad you are having fun with GS. Still a remarkable bit of work after all these years.

fng

edit:

I forgot something: if you are using the Winter or Desert terrains, I suggest one other mod: The HiDef terrain executable. Makes a huge difference in how good things look. This is just a new version of the standard, patched NO-CD exe, but with an interesting modification: It only uses the high detail 3D objects at all distances.

http://www.simwarrior.com/gunship/utilities/GSHiD_v1.zip

Just unzip it into your Gunship! folder next to the original gunship.exe, and make a shortcut for it if you like. Works well in the normal terrain, too, as you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m79Q5bQ4eE

Thanks fng,

Been trying that, but whenever I try to run one of the DOS batch files, I get "The system cannot recognise the path specified: Something is amiss with your Gunship! installation", then it aborts.

Is this an artifact of trying to run a DOS batch under WinXP, and is there a workaround?

Thanks again

Mike

Hi again fng, since I wrote the last message a couple of days ago I have got things working after a fashion. It's not as elegant as your old method though. By "knive and forking" the transfer of the relevant files, I now have multiple copies of Gunship! working with regular terrain, desert terrain, and winter terrain, and also a couple of alternatives of these with flyable Hinds vice Hokums and flyable AH1Zs vice Tigers. Not particularly efficient, but it works!

Mike

Hi, Mike,

Glad to hear that you got stuff working, after a fashion.

The problem that you were having probably wasn't with batch files, per se, but rather, how those particular .bats were written to interact with the MODM8.pdf.

I was able to run MODM8 under XP SP2 and Acrobat Reader 8.1.2, but attempting to run those batch files without using the .pdf resulted in the same error messages that you got.

If you must use MODM8, all that I can suggest is trying to use an older (and less secure) version of Acrobat Reader, or editing the batch files yourself.

Moving on slightly, does anyone know where I can find a copy of the heloswapper exe file HELOINST45.EXE? I've been trying all the old links and they're all defunct. I just want to try its frameless Havoc canopy files for the Hind models.

Thanks

Mike

Well, glad you got it sorted, Mike. Sorry it was a hassle. I think Samovar is right. Again. Which is getting a little tiresome, if you catch the drift of my wind.

Here is that file you seek. The EXE is just a self extracting Zip file for a batch file precursor to ModM8. But be very careful with the batch file. I honestly don't remember everything it does. (It jsut moves files around inside the Gunship folder, but I don't know how it gets along with later mods...)

Here is the Readme, which helpfully says nothing about why version 4.5 is different. Hard to find good help.:


http://www.simwarrior.com/gunship/utilities/Heloinst45.exe

Hello all!
I am new here, recently I started to re-evaluate older WWII air combat games and also Heli combat games, and while searching for modifications i found this topic, about Gunship! . Now I also checked several Gunship! related websites that still exists, but its all a bit confusing for me. Could somebody maybe, please, give some short advice, what is the definite best way to experience most beauty and content in Gunship ? I see text here "...other, later GS mods installed", which ones I should get and use?
Many -Thanks!- in advance for any help and advices!

Welcome to the forum, Juris3D!
A no-cd .exe is a good thing to have. There's a large collection of mods (including a hi-def no-cd .exe) at fng2k's Gunship! Helipad:
Helipad

And there's a similar no-cd .exe that includes some additional stuff here:
Bangers & Mash

samovar6, Thanks for help!

Do I understand right that there are no higher resolution ground textures for "Gunship!", only region versions of terrains, technically with the same texture resolution?