Downloading CM2 Scenarios again

[donnieitaly]

My computer crashed and I've just bought a new 160G hard drive.

I've copied back all the Zip file scenarios and loaded them as instructed by Phillipe (SP? Sorry) but whilst they show up in my C drive in Scenarios they won't transfer over to my game.

I did this before but it doesn't work now.

What might I be missing?

TIA

[Philippe]

I'm afraid I don't understand your post. What exactly did you do? The basic drill is to download the scenarios to someplace safe. Then unzip them to someplace even safer. Then go into that place and copy and paste the contents to your cmbb scenario folder. The most popular culprit problem these days seems to be that scenarios get unzipped directly to the scenario folder and don't show up because they're inside their own folder (which the program won't look into).

If that isn't your problem please describe exactly what you've done in pornographic detail.

[donnieitaly]

I'm fairly sure that's what I did. Unzipped. Copied, transferred and screamed.

I'll go over it again tonight. Thanks

[donnieitaly]

In fact I'm sure that's what I did. Or did I copy them direct to the Scenario folder. I don't think so because I saved the unzipped scenarios to a , dammit, forgotten the name, "Scenario Salvage something..." first.

I'll try agian.

I have massive tooth infection today which is NOT helping

[George MC]

Have you made sure you have added the patch to your CMBB game so it is the latest version?

Using a differant patched version of the game affects scenarios being recognised.

Cheers fur noo

George Mc

[donnieitaly]

Okay, I unzipped the first batch of CMBO scenarios and saved them to a "Overlord Salvage" folder. The I transferred them to the Scenarios folder in the CMBO, umm, place on the C drive.

I ran the game (I re-installed it) from the original disc I've always used and - nothing.

No transfer.

Irritating thing is whilst I am not a computer expert by any means I did manage all this the first time. When my son re-built all my files, folders and programs from my old C drive and put them on my new one he asked me if I wanted the "Combat Mission" stuff adding. Since he'd come 90 miles and given up most of his weekend I told him no problem I could do it.

Hmmm !

[Philippe]

Ok, let's take it from the top.

First, what is the exact path of your CMBB scenario folder.

Second, note that if you try to put a CMBB scenario into CMBO, or a CMBO scenario into CMBB, nothing will happen. (I only mention this because I notice that you're switching back and forth in your nomenclature, and if you happened to do that when you were copying files...)

Third, go into your holding bin of downloaded and unzipped files and select one (and only one) file.

Copy and paste it to the folder that it came from. You'll now have a small file named "copy of x" where x is whatever the name of the original was. Select that file (left click on it once with the mouse so that it becomes highlighted) and right click. A small menu will pop up, and one of the items, probably towards the bottom, will be "rename". Select it, and rename the file named "copy of x" to "aaaaaaa". Doesn't matter how many a's, just make sure that there are at least three. When the file is renamed, copy and paste it (just that one file) into your CMBB scenario folder.

Then come back and tell us exactly (and I mean exactly) what you did, stroke, by stroke. The problem is that you are making some hidden assumption and not telling us about it. Whatever that assumption is, it is wrong, and it is preventing you from getting this done. So please, please tell us the exact path of your CMBB installation and exactly what you are doing.

If you aren't explicit we'll have to guess, but our natural guess will be to something that works. And that won't be what you're doing. I have some theories about what may be happening but I don't want to waste time speculating until I know what is really going on.

[tankibanki]

The problem could be a different language version of CM.

In the German version the Scenario folder is named "Szenarien", but after updating to the newest version you have to move all scenarios to the folder "Scenarios" (or rename the folder). Maybe you have encountered a similar problem.

[donnieitaly]

Okay, it's near Christmas, my wife is ill, I have toothache, I have too order £1000 worth of miniatures to paint, I'm losing my day job and my son has become a vegetarian.

So far so good.

I've re-installed CMBB and got nowhere. Yet I did it before and it was fine. I own three versions of the game (just so I won't wear out one disc) So I decided to scrap my file of Zipped downloads and begin again from the start.

Can I find them on the Internet? No.

Where are they Pleeeze. I can do the downloading, I know I can (maybe) but I need this. Otherwise it's Heroin. (Just kidding.)

[Philippe]

Vegetarian isn't so bad as long as he has a sense of humor about it. And given my relationship with animals, I'd be one too if I had to kill what I ate. But as everyone knows, chicken and beef come from cellophane packages, not live animals. Good thing I've never heard of avian flu and mad cow disease. Pasta Primavera is good for you, vegetarian chile is delicious, and there are quite a few meatless lasagna recipe's out there. Besides, most of the world can't afford to eat it anyway.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by scrapping your zip file, but I'll give it the worst case interpretation.

You need to go two places: combatmission.com and cmmods.com.

Combatmission.com is Madmatt's semi-unofficial CM page. If you dig around in the links sections (Resources in the upper right hand corner of this screen) you'll notice something called CMHQ. Go there. It has CMMOS 4.03, slightly more up-to-date versions of many of the mods that were on the Special Edition CD, and several really good mods as well. Most of the site is devoted to CMBO, but there are sections that deal with CMBB and CMAK as well (not that much CMAK). There are also several good articles for beginners on using mods by Mad Matt that you should probably read. They're written about CMBO, but I think they would do you good.

Most of the mods currently available for CMBB can be found at cmmods.com. Go there, register, and spend some time looking around. And buried away in the CMBB section you will eventually find something called Scenario Depot Salvage -- this is Birdgunner's collection of Scenario Depot scenarios that I posted to cmmods to preserve them for posterity while people argued about what to replace it with.

And remember. Please do everything very slowly and deliberately. You'll make far fewer mistakes that way, and things won't get lost in your computer. Set up the structure (at least) of the holding folders for your downloads before you download anything. That way you'll know where to put things.

[Tiredboots]

As an aside. My deepest thanks to Phillipe for is tutorial on downloading scenarios. that a computer challenged like me could do it is a tribute to his patience & teaching skills. It took me 5 hours to figure it (well almost: I seem to have lost parts of the original scenarios) and learned alot about using windows. My brain feels like mush, but it's a good kind of mush. Thank you.

[donnieitaly]

I'll second that even though work has prevented me from carrying out his advice.

Nine days off at Christmas. It'll be a GOOD time.

[donnieitaly]

I've still not had time to carry out the aaa suggestion above but here's some facts that worry me.

I successfully unZipped seven files and copied and pasted them into a "Scenario Salvage folder". There were 1106 scenarios. Then I copied and pasted all of those into the Scenarios folder in my CMBB (CM2) Program files on my C drive.

That's what I did last time and it worked,

So then I tried to start up the game. My disc is a "cdv CDR8038/UK2"

When I looked at the scenarios in the game I had only 212 the first being "1 if by Land" and the last being "Wittman in the East". I guess this is the normal set of scenarios.

With the the Zip files the first was "1 if by land", the second "2nd Panzer Advance" and the last two "Zero Tolerance and Zuruck on Chainbridge"

My son is works in Computers and is coming here on Saturday so I'm going to ask him, but I can't understand why i can succesfully load all those Zips the first time, but I can't now.

I have two copies of the CM2 disc and one Combat Mission Anthology.

Dammit!

[donnieitaly]

I just did the same with CMBO (CM1)

I decided to uninstall the version I had and install the first disk of the CM Anthology.

Then I opened a folder "Scenario Salvage" and downloaded and un Zipped on Zip file (The "A"s) into my SS folder. Then I copied them and pasted them into the Scenario folder in CM1 programs folder.

Nothing transferred.

:-(

[Philippe]

Sounds like you're mixing apples and oranges here, and that may be part of the problem. And I most certainly am having trouble following what you're doing.

First and foremost, CMBO will never read CMBB files, and CMBB will never read CMBO files. Punto Final.

Assuming that you aren't trying to put CMBB scenario files into CMBO, what exactly do you mean by "nothing transferred"?

If you unzip a CMBO scenario into a holding folder (please mention the path), and then copy it, and then rename the copy to aaa, if you then copy the file newly named aaa, go into C:\Program Files\CMBO\Scenarios and paste it in, are you saying that when you close the scenario folder and then reopen it the file named aaa is not at the top of the list (assuming you aren't viewing it as a thumbnail)? Or are you saying that after you copied it into the proper scenario folder and fired up CMBO it didn't appear in the scenario menu? Note that mods and scenarios added to the bmp or scenario folder do not change what is going on in the CM program until after you shut the program down and fire it up again. [i'm only mentioning this to make sure you didn't have CMBO running while you tried the copy and paste routine].

Please describe in pornographic detail exactly what you are doing. And please, please, please be sure to list the path (C:\Program Files\Whatever). I'm not familiar with the anthology or how it installs things, but at the end of the day its still got to set the game up more or less the way the original program was set up.

Are things that you're unzipping getting unzipped into folders? (And I really didn't understand what "un Zipped on Zip file" means).

We are talking about something very basic here. You've got two folders. One of them has a file in it. You copy the file, and paste it into the other folder. Now both folders have the same file in it. If the file "didn't transfer" you have a problem. You aren't transferring the file. You're making a copy of the file and putting it directly into the other folder. Do this last step from inside the other folder by right clicking on a blank spot and then left-clicking on paste on the menu that will appear. If you're doing some kind of drag and drop thing your hand may be slipping.

Go over every step very, very slowly. That computer in front of you is just a stupid piece of over-priced metal and plastic: do you control it, or does it control you? (Only Leni Riefenstahl knows the answer).

[donnieitaly]

I appreciate I'm typing my explanations too quickly and whilst I know what I'm saying my typing errors don't help.

I honestly will, really, honestly let my son have a go at this on Saturday and then everything will be perfect

(As a matter of interest I'm un Zipping a Zipped file into a folder, revealing dozens of scenarios and then copying them and pasting them into the Scenario folder in the relevant game). ((I take your point about apples and oranges, but I'm certainly not mixing up the two games.))

When I say "it doesnt transfer" I mean that the scenarios get to the scenario folder in the Programs folder for the game, but when I open the game to play it the scenarios have not "transferred" into the list of games to play!

I know my replies are klutzy but no-one except my boss in the Civil Service ever accused me of being a computer expert

[Tiredboots]

What I did , and I'm not sure it's the right way, I downloaded the 7 zip files to a new folder in program files then transfered them to C:\program files\CMBB\scenarios, where they showed up at the top as file icons. Then opened them up( only 2, after i realized the enormous # of scenarios contained within). They then showed up as individual documents in the scenarios folder and had been transfered to the game's scenarios menue.

[donnieitaly]

That's nearly what I did. I'll try it.

[donnieitaly]

Okay, my genius son came home for the weekend and here's what happened.

He uninstalled both games (CM1 & CM2) then he downloaded the Zipped Scenarios for CM1 and reinstalled the game. He opened the Zips placed them somewhere on the C drive and the opened up the Scenarios in the Program Folder for CM1.

He transferred all the scenarios and everything worked perfectly

He did the same to CM2 and we both looked at the game with the scenarios in it.

Perfect.

We drove him back home and then on my return I loaded CM2 and looked at the "new" scenarios.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

They'd gone. Yes. That's true, they'd gone.

So, I downloaded the Zips again and did all the above and opened up the game and

.

.

.

.

.

.

they're still there, in the game, ready to be played.

Is that weird or what?

[Tiredboots]

That's... spooky.Time to sacrifice 2 black roosters on the full moon. Send one to Bill Gate, the other to Phillipe so he can Read the entrails. I personally keep 5 black candles burning at all time around my computer. Anyway, glad you got the scenariots.

[donnieitaly]

Damn. I'd forgotten the candles. That was probably it.