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Gamebase / Windows 8.1

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millansoft
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Gamebase / Windows 8.1

Wed Nov 20, 2013 1:50 pm

Hello,

I installed Windows 8.1 and I found something weird, the Play button in every GameBase I have is disabled (grayed out), the paths are ok and it shows the screenshots, any ideas?

Thanks!

Solved: This happens if your account isn't Administrator.
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K.C.
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Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:50 pm

Same problem here.
Starting GameBase from Windows 8.1, the Play Game-button is grayed out, unless you start it as Administrator.
It must start as an account with elevated UAC permissions. Just making the user member of the Local Admins group is not enough.
I don't see starting Gamebase as an administrator is not a solution, more a temporary workaround.

Unfortunately James just has announced that he has to stop further development due to lack of free time.
But GameBase is an open source project.
Who has VB programming skills and can fix this for us?
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Mayhem
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Wed Nov 27, 2013 2:17 pm

Where did you installed Gamebase on the hard drive? Since Vista, it's been inadvisable to install it in ProgramFiles. Put it somewhere else instead.
Lie with passion and be forever damned...
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K.C.
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Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:21 pm

It's a Win 8.1 problem.
Whatever folder you install Gamebase in, it only works if you start GameBase.exe as Administrator.
All Windows versions up to Windows 8 don't have this problem.
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.mad.
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Thu Nov 28, 2013 4:07 pm

it might be something to do with Visual Basic, the code Gamebase is written in.

searching for "visual basic+win 8.1" shows several compatability problems.

maybe using a microsoft hotfix will help.
it won't hurt anyway.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pareshj/archive ... ows-8.aspx

This is just total guess work on my part. :wink:
millansoft
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Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:38 pm

After reading a bit about it, seems that Visual Basic Apps are doomed and should be ported to another language, maybe for the future, we will need somekind of tool or method to migrate the GameBases and don't be slaves of an old OS (I'm not telling that Windows 7 is an old OS, is wonderful right now, but wouldn't last forever, sooner or later we will have to move on)
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.mad.
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Sun Dec 14, 2014 6:39 pm

just done a bit more digging for VB6 and Win 8.1

below are a few snippets from various websites

[https ://vb6andwindows8.codeplex.com/]
Install Visual Basic 6 in Windows 8

For those who still develop VB6 apps, I guess will need this.

1. Right click on setup.exe of your VB6 install and check Run as Administrator with XP SP 3 compatibility pack. I tried Windows 7 compatibility, it also worked.
2. During the setup, go to components and select everything you want to install except for "Data Access". If "Data Access" is selected, the install will hang even though everything will be installed. Disabling "Data Access" ensures that the install completes and restarts your computer to finalize the install. Why this hangs the system is beyond me. LOL.
3. I am using a 64bit machine, this is not supported by Microsoft and will not be supported as VB6 is 32 bit and should be hosted in 32 bit system. Thus some controls in my system didn't work. I found my listview control didn't want to burge at all.
4. Download and install VB6 Service Pack (SP6) Runtime Extended (what??) from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957924?wa=wsignin1.0
5. Now you can start vb6 ide and code, everything should be mnca!
6. Step 1 done, now to code and install my VB6 app in some WinXp, Vista and & 7 machine!! crossing fingers


[http: //www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?687853- ... -Windows-8]
Below is what I saved as .reg file and updated the registry to continue with sp6 installation.

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MS Setup (ACME)]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MS Setup (ACME)\Table Files]
"Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition@v6.0.0.0.0626 (1033)"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\VB98\\Setup\\1033\\setup.stf"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition]
"DisplayName"="Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition"
"UninstallString"="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\VB98\\Setup\\1033\\Setup.exe\""
Compiled exe (VB6 code) runs ok on win8 32bit and 64 bit. Till now no problem observed.

And finally...

https://github.com/martinmoene/martin-m ... dows%208.1


There maybe hope for GameBase and Win 8.1. :wink:
Until then, i can live quite happily with XP and Win 7.
Michael Plate
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Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:44 pm

K.C. wrote:It's a Win 8.1 problem.
Whatever folder you install Gamebase in, it only works if you start GameBase.exe as Administrator.
All Windows versions up to Windows 8 don't have this problem.
Hmmm, I have Gamebase installed on Win 8.1 and can start it without any struggles.
Maybe it's because it resides on drive E: or because I had it installed on my disk before upgrading to Windows!?

/Michael
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K.C.
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Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:27 pm

I can confirm that the last months I don't have any problems too with GameBase running on Win 8.1.
I have 3 Win 8.1 setups with GameBase installed, which are all running fine. Probably Windows Update corrected the problem somehow.
millansoft
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Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:55 am

Hello,

After toying a bit about it in a couple of computers with differents OS, I can confirm for sure that the Play button appears disabled (grayed out), in Windows 7 and 8 (didnt tried with Vista), when your user account hasn't Administrator privileges or the User Account Control in Windows 7 - 8 is in a high level (paranoid mode).
GameBase needs to be ported to NetFramework I think, but I dont have the acknowledge to do it :( At least exists a Java port in case that in a future version of Windows we can't run it anymore decently.

Regards
Michael Plate
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Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:47 pm

The play button is usually greyed out when either emulator or game file are not found. Please verify that the paths are set correctly.

/Michael
millansoft
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Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:51 pm

Hello,

The paths are fine, and I have working all the GameBases perfectly, but as I said when in Windows 7 and 8 (didnt tried with Vista), your user account hasn't Administrator privileges or the User Account Control in Windows 7 - 8 is in a high level (paranoid mode) it appears always disabled (grayed out), everyone could reproduce this behaviour easily.

Regards
Underfly
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Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:04 pm

In my experience, from newly fresh installed versions of windows 8.1, I experienced plenty of incompatibly problems and strange behaviour, even some emulators refused to run correctly, but eventually everything begins to run fine even without checking adminstrator priviages, but still, Gamebase is the only the very few 32bit applications I still use, it's long over due and time to go to 64bit.
Gentlegamer
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Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:35 pm

You may have to run GameBase in DOSbox. :lol:

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