Thanks for the info, I will see if it happens on the other system, the one that runs on Windows 98SE and EAW works on all the time.

Why the hell you always place ecapanel 3.6 into your Poland folder??

Only by installing this, you overwrite the Poland FM/DM´s and may cause strange results.

Hi Mike,

is there a reason for using the 1.26e EXE? I'm not entirely acquainted with how this EXE operates but recent research showed that some minor modifications are made to the CDF's and the EAW.INI which seemed to cause some weird behaviour on some machines.
These machines showed an EAW.INI which no longer looked comparable with the default EAW.INI and the normal 1.2 exe no longer worked good because the CDF's were altered.
Obviously the purpose of the 1.26E patch is not to enhance the 1.2 version but to make it work on operating systems which were troublesome and IMHO therefore should not be used unless you've ran out of options. Using the patch where it wasn't really necessary account for most of the above problems.
When addons rely on unchanged EXE's and CDF's to work, simply because the files they use are also unchanged and possibly different then the ones used in the 1.26 version, it seems logical to assume that either such changes must also be made to the addons or the addons shouldn't be used with such EXE's.
It's simmilar as to why you can not replace the EAW.EXE with the DUNKIRK.EXE or most other addon specific EXE's, because it uses extensively changed filenames or filetypes or other changes which no longer have any simmilarity with the stock game. When the EXE is modified to use changed files and these files are incorporated into CDF's then the problem gets even worse as no past addon was build with such changes in mind and the changed files may have been replaced with versions which rely on the default files.
The only advice I can therefore give is to use a clean 1.2 install with the glidewrapper added, that is if such is at all possible on your machine.
Furthermore EAW's installation and proper functioning can be seriously hampered by certain programs which you may have run previously or which remain working in the background. These programs may accidentally change the cache used by EAW which is used on startup or they can occupy vital parts in memory also used by EAW (this because the program uses fixed and not relocatable areas).
It is why Microprose and Atari suggested to run only the most minimal of processes in their FAQ.
Somehow I feel that installs should only be attempted with as little processes running as possible and only after a reboot to free up memory and cache.
I can't guarantee if such will help but after 7 years of having dealt with problems on hundreds of machines it's a gut feeling which is winning terrain and which seems only prudent.
BTW, you can run ECA in any subfolder and after execution you can copy/paste the changed .DAT and .STR and .FLT files into your EAW install. As Ralf says this will alter the FM/DM allready there as it will be overwritten by the ECA changes. I'm not sure if that is what you want but it's your choice to make. I think the addon will work fine without the ECA changes.

VonBeerhofen

The readme file says to use ECA 1.4 so I put ECA 1.4 and then ECApanel 3.6 into the Poland folder before any other files were downloaded into it. ECApanel was not run, only the accompaning files were added to the EAW directory. The common folder, skin folder and terrain folder, and Poland fixes were added after the basic EAW was copied (from a successful Win 98 load). I did this because nothing else seemed to run (and I did this onto my Win XP machine which hates EAW).

I haven't gotten Poland to run correctly on my Win 98 SE machine. I've used the EAW 1.2a exe on that machine for Poland 39. I've used the 1.26e exe because of the CTD problem and most things worked fine with it, (Dunkirk, Andy's 1944, Final Year of the Luftwafffe, SAW, Great Shot!, etc).
Besides 1.2a doesn't work on the XP machine I get the not a valid 32 app message.
Now I'm really getting confused, are you saying to just load the mod directly into a freah EAW 1.2a load without any thing else added (ECA etc)? OK, I'll try that.

Hi Mike,

possibly a number of the ECA files allready changed the addon's FM by overwriting it. XP requires any EXE to be called EAW.EXE, changes in the name will produce your error. WinME and Win98SE don't care about what name you give the EXE and I have about 4 or 5 in a single install simultanously.
The 1.2a version is an unofficial recompiled version and very interesting in itself, yet there is no telling what effects this EXE may have on some machines. I guess you just need a bit of luck there and it's not known to cause problems. It however seems to suggest that you don't really need the 1.26E patch but if it works then I wouldn't try changing it, that might cause even more problems.
Are you aware of the necessary EAW.INI changes you need to make for all NoCD versions of the EXE?

[Miscellaneous]
Debug Flags=0
Debug Path=.\

Many problems are caused by differences in video hardware. Especially earlier addons were created for Glide cards and others for TNT. A common misunderstanding which slowly crept in was the believe that .TER or terrain tiles only needed hires drawings. So often you will find a hires copy of the BN***.TER in the LR***.TER slot. My research showed that some video cards needed a lores tile to function properly where other machines were able to force hires in by changing the terrain detail setting in the game.
I fear the same misconception crept into the planeskins and groundobject files Where P***TEX.TPC stands for a hires skin and P***TES.TPC for the lores version and TMOD**_H.TPC stands for hires groundobject and TMOD**_L.TPC for lores version. Ofcourse the older the card the higher the chances to run into this problem.
To see if your card is subject to this problem you can temporarily cut all .TER files into a seperate folder and see if the addon works without the tiles. If this turns out to be the problem then perhaps you can get your hands on a tileset which holds both lo and hires versions and might work with the addon.
Basically removing filetypes selectively is the best way to determine where addons are buggy. Still some knowledge on EAW is necessary to do so but in general the cut files are taken over by the default versions of these files in the CDF's.
You can then allways paste these files back in without problems, which is how OAW actually operates too.
The entire campaign is in all the .DAT files, and these should besically work as standalone too without the FM/DM or graphics/sounds/text for that addon.
There is another problem you need to be aware of. Having multiple installs on your machine can hamper redirection of registry shortcuts when cleaning the registry. If a file is found to no longer be present (pretty normal after an OAW reset), the cleaner will try to find a file with the same name and redirect the shortcut to what it finds. This means that the registry can get crossrefences to multiple versions of your install or directly into OAW folders and the game might try to use these shortcuts which ofcourse won't work since all the shortcuts need to point to the running gamefolder itself.

VonBeerhofen

OK, so I'll take the stock 1.2 patched EAW change the ini for no cd and try that. Just so you know, the terrain doesn't seem to cause a problem on my Win 98 system. If I could find a way to get my XP system to run without CTDs I would be very happy. I have followed the recomendations for XP installs from the WIKI etc, used Knegels campaign data fix and still crash on that one. But, that is another story isn't it. Thanks much.

Hi,


For use the NO-CD modification (EAW.INI modified as indicated by VB) you must use the EAW 1.2 NO-CD patch (available on Sandbagger pages)

As reminder:

1.26E is already a NO-CD version.
It's indicated in the readme ..as well the changes he provide.






That's why ...it's better to install ONCE EAW ....and if you need more installs of the game ..it's better to make a COPY-PASTE of the entire game in a new folder ..
The best of course is to no made a install but just a copy-past from the CD.... (it's work!!)
Just needed to see what files are not necessary... but if they are pasted ..it's no problems created.(just a question of housekeeping and used space!)
Of course if one install was already performed ...a cleaning of the registry is in on order after the deinstallation of the game.

OFF

Hi,

is there another Poland1939 V1.3 available??

In my readmy, which is the same like the one WC posted in this theatre, i can read this:

"This campaign is not (!!!) ECA Panel compatible. So please do not start ECA Panel when having installed this campaign. If you were not able to resist install this campaign again (just overwrite all files)."

But anyway, did you rename the camp40**.dat files, like i suggested??

Greetings,

Knegel

Hi Iron Mike,
I have/had the same probs when I want to play the German side. I have (believe it or not) installed the Version 1.3 about thirty times as told in the readme (with small differences)- and always got a CTD when I pushed the selecion button for the german side. I´m also running Win98se, DirectX 9.0c, Driver Nvidia 6.49 ( all other EAW Installs are running fine!!!)
With the several installs I figured out ( the v.1 install is/was running) - by adding the files of v1.3 one after the other and then trying out with file is making the trouble, that following files are causing the CTD:
Nationc.wsp
Ntnpicgr.wsp
Ntnpicuk.wsp
Ntnpicus.wsp
Pltcar.mpc
Esp. the file Ntnpicgr.wsp, can´t say why.
So I deleted then (or put them into an other folder than EAW), , and now I can select the german side, hmm... I works for me - but now i´m getting the standard selection screen....
Hope this helps a little !?

To my knowledge there is only one Poland 39. However, the is Andy's v1.2 at his page on Sandbaggers site. I know that v1.3 is not compatable with ECApanel, but I tried it because it is a part of ECA. I didn't run ecapanel.exe inside of the EAW folder, just copied the files ontop of ECA 1.4. The copy didn't make a difference in running the program. It crashes with or without the ecapanel files on the German campaign side. The Polish side with it's beautiful screens works fine so far. I'm still unclear about ECA 1.4 being used at all in ver 1.3 though.

Yes, I did, it crashed with a big bang and the system became unstable (didn't tell you that part before, but the crash caused the system to go totally wonky. A second try at EAW locks it up completely).
BTW, the main Polish fighter flys like a pig.

C.C.K., humm...you know it is like chicken soup, it doesn't hurt to give it a try. I'll delete those files from the common file set before I try again. Also, I've gone back to the source and downloaded all the zips again, just in case I had a bad file.

And finaly, I am going to use a EAW patched to 1.2 with Andys 1.2ac no cd patch this time as a basis. I have run a basic EAW mission with the ini modified to nocd, 1280/1024 res my remapables etc. with out a glitch. So I know the basic installation is ok.