Streaming EQ2
 

I guess I haven't seen anything about this, and I'm pretty doubtful, but is there any kind of funky bug or something with the new EQ2 Streaming Client and custom UI's? I worked on this for over an hour this weekend after rebuilding my machine (Windows 7 - 64bit) and coming back to EQ2 (with the new streaming client), but I just cannot get my custom UI to load. I checked everything I could think of (repeatedly), but man I just can't figure out what's goin' on here. This UI stuff with EQ2 is pretty straightforward, but somethin' ain't right.

What I've done:

1. Created a folder in the UI folder called "Custom", which is where I'm dumping my UI mods.
2. Created ye olde eq2.ini file and put it in my EQ2 root folder. The script in the .ini file is the same two line script that's on this sites FAQ, with my little "Custom" UI folder edited in there.
3. Turned off Windows 7's UAC.

The really telling (and wierd) thing is that I even got to the point where I made a backup of the "Default" UI folder, and then turned around and just dumped my UI files into it ("Default"), and it STILL didn't work (which really confuses the hell outta me).

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Several possibilities, the most likely one being that you have several EQ2 installations (many people do without knowing, the different patchers like to do that) and are installing the custom UI to the wrong one (right clicking and selecting properties on the icon you use to start eq2 usually helps to find the correct path).

One other possibility is that your eq2.ini is either in the wrong format or with the wrong extension (e.g. eq2.ini.txt and you have hide known extensions enabled).

Finally, assuming you are installing the mod into the correct folder, it is possible that you are trying to install a mod which is no longer compatible with the game (the game changes regularly requiring updates to many UI mods).

I think the streaming client that is being tested installs eq2 the user area. Mine has been bugged out since the last test update. But I am pretty sure it installed eq2 in a strange place. I'll look once I get home I can't recall as i've slept many times since I've played with it.. Like gm9 said, most likely you have at least 2 eq2 installed and the streaming client isn't using the one you are putting the ui in.

IIRC, by default the streaming client installs eq2 somewhere OUTSIDE of Program Files (since it being in there is what causes a majority of folks' issues). If you used to use the other patchers you are likely installing your ui to the wrong folder.

Thanks for the replies all! And you're right: the streaming client does install to a weird location (really wierd in fact). I'd even had similar thoughts along the lines mentioned (plus I didn't like this bizarre install location) so I uninstalled the game, and reloaded it and told it to install to a much more sane location (for me, that's C:\Games\EQ2). And that's where it is now.

Ed. I'll check tonight and make sure there isn't something sitting somewhere else. Maybe it creates some type of little profile within My Documents (as some games occasionally do) or something like that.

This was noted on the Official Forums. The Streaming Client installs in a weird location because SoE wants to make sure that every version of Windows is compatible and will be able to run EQ2 without any administrative/permissive issues.

Not only settings files, but they have to change the executables and VPK files constantly... pretty much all of EQ2 is of possibly dynamic files, so yeah... putting any of it in Program Files would cause problems.

Ever since Windows 5.x, there has been a set place for volatile application data, but not everyone used it until Vista came out. So despite looking "really weird", it's almost a decade old. Okay, so it changes from each Windows version, but it's always been easy to detect from environment variables.

The easiest way for end-users to find this location is to type %APPDATA% into an explorer location bar. Although thinking about it, they probably use one that works for all computer users instead of just the currently logged in one.

Not that it matters, but IIRC every Windows (NT) version since NT3.5 had %APPDATA% (although with NT5 the default path for it was moved.

Progamatically there are better ways to get that folder instead of using a SET path variable... and there doesn't seem to be an exact SET variable for non-specific users. I haven't been programming for long enough to know about before 2k/XP. Also, not that it matters, but Vista/7 also use a completely new set of locations and also makes less sense since it considers roaming and local profiles separately.

Well my post wasn't about the environment variable but the fact that there was a user profile folder for storing arbitrary application data. :) And yes I know that as an application developer I'd pull the path from the registry. ;)