Getting U7 gamedat folder on OSX?

[junap]

I still have many of my old dos games from back in the day including U7, but I'm currently on a mac (G5 iMac, OSX 10.4.7). Since exult seems to need the 'installed' files, rather than the 'installation' files, is there any way I can extract the necessary bits from the installer to run in exult? I don't have Virtual PC alas

[Gunnar]

First get dosbox and then read the documentation http://exult.info/docs.php#Installing%2 ... th%20Exult

[Gunnar]

That should have been documentation

[Gunnar]

You'll have to copy paste, I can't create that link

[junap]

thanks for the help!

[MeddlingMonk]

There's an easier way.

When you just copy the files the permissions for owner are read and write but for group they are read only. That's why Exult has a problem if you just copy the files over. The group permissions also need to be read and write. That needs to be changed for every file and folder for BG and SI but fortunately that can be done for batches. In OSX it's as simple as copying to the hard drive the folder for BG and SI, selecting both folders and bringing up the info, then go down to Owership & Permissions, expand Details, change Access under Group from Read Only to Read & Write and then click on Apply to enclosed items.

[wjp]

Why does it need group write access?

[Wizardry Dragon]

Well, it depends, really. If you have more than one person using the computer in question then obviously more people than the User that installed it need to have appropriate access. This is the case on my laptop, since both I and my roommate use it.
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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[MeddlingMonk]

wjp, I'm not sure why. I'm going on the very unscientific principle of 'it worked when I did this'. One thing that's maybe semi-interesting if not semi-relevant is I set up Pentagram yesterday and for an experiment did not bother changing the permissions and that works fine (so far). Of course that's Pentagram. Sometimes trying to get things to work with Wine in Fedora I've absolutely had to change permissions to get something to work when copied from a CD and I've sort of gotten into the habit. It's possible that it's incorrect to assume that because it works for me doing it this way that it will work for everyone. Maybe the exact version of OSX is important. I'm using 10.4.7. Maybe it's different in 10.3 or 10.2, but I vaguely remember changing the permissions when I was using 10.2. I've never bothered installing U7 using DOSBox.

Wizardry, the people using the computer aren't exactly the point. Programs can be users, too.

[Wizardry Dragon]

That's true. The way i have permissions set up needs me to have group permissions if I want all (human) users to be able to run things, but it should be fine swith just user perms AFAIK.
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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[MeddlingMonk]

Since Pentagram ran just fine without changing permissions of the original game data, I tried it with Exult and same thing. Maybe it's not so much permissions, in this case, as maybe the version of Exult. I'm using 1.4 snapshots. Perhaps 1.2 is different. Or perhaps the difference is in whether you're building it yourself.