Problem with blank walls in Vista

[Malak Darkhunter]

I have tried the wall_fix patch, then the fixed fonts, and in both cases I replaced the old files with the new ones, but neither helped Nor does deleting font-win.prf. And when I try to edit font-win.prf as suggested in some replies, it says that the access was denied so I can't save the changes Yet another workaround suggests to interact with the visuals, but the menu seems to have changed since 3.0.9.

Any suggestions? I'd prefer blocks as walls, but hashes would be fine as well. To put it straight: At the moment, walls are not displayed at all.

Are you logged on as an administrator? in Vista you have to be logged on as an administrator to access certain security options. Or sometimes you have to select properties on the application shortcut and select run as administrator.
I myself use vista all the time and I always disable font-win in the pref files, if I want pure ascii characters.
try restarting your computer, then makes sure you logged on as an administrator, and then try renaming lib/pref/ font-win to font-winx and then press (enter) to save that name. Works for on 3.4, and virtually every variant I have tried even Sang with it's sdl interface.
I would say your main problem is getting around Vista's security interface to access that file, that's why make sure you are logged on with administrator privelages.

[Timo Pietilä]

Are you logged on as an administrator? in Vista you have to be logged on as an administrator to access certain security options.

Angband doesn't require anything like that unless you have managed to install it to some secure place where you shouldn't have installed it. In that case you probably don't have write permission to save folder either, which would suck. Angband itself runs with user rights without any problems, and nothing you do inside it requires admin rights.

If the install folders are in some place you have edit rights (like sub-folder in "documents") then there is no system restriction to edit those files (unless deliberately put there by your sysadmin, in which case I say either your sysadmin is a moron or you should not be playing angband in that workstation).

I say this to prevent people from using admin-rights when they are not really needed. Logging in as administrator is a bad habit that has roots in sub-win XP era where people didn't know how to write programs that didn't require admin-rights to run properly (some remnants of that still exist, there are some idiotic softwares still around).

I get "access denied" if I double-click the file, because that tries to open it in some "internet rating and local user management dll" where normal users don't have rights and not for editing.

I suggest installing notepad++ (google it) and editing files with it.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Well Timo I really don't agree with you on that, I know what works for me, and hey it's worth a suggestion, I would much rather be longed on as an administrator to many any change I desire as the sole user of a computer then just a user, but hey different strokes for different folks.

[caruso]

Are you saying that if you download 3.4.0 from the website that walls are not displayed at all?

Yes. Sorry about the confusion...

try restarting your computer, then makes sure you logged on as an administrator, and then try renaming lib/pref/ font-win to font-winx and then press (enter) to save that name. Works for on 3.4, and virtually every variant I have tried even Sang with it's sdl interface.

You can rename the file without admin rights, but the walls remain blank

Angband doesn't require anything like that unless you have managed to install it to some secure place where you shouldn't have installed it.

The Angband folder is located in C:\Program Files\Games\Roguelikes That's standard, isn't it?

I get "access denied" if I double-click the file, because that tries to open it in some "internet rating and local user management dll" where normal users don't have rights and not for editing.

I have modified win-pref with the Angband folder being located on the desktop. Then I copied the folder to C:\Program Files\Games\Roguelikes, loaded the comp save - and the walls are still blank!

[zaimoni]

The Angband folder is located in C:\Program Files\Games\Roguelikes That's standard, isn't it?

A standard broken install (cannot save as normal user). Don't Do That.

[Nick]

The Angband folder is located in C:\Program Files\Games\Roguelikes That's standard, isn't it?

ISTR (and IANAE) that putting it pretty much anywhere but C:\Program Files works.

[Malak Darkhunter]

ISTR (and IANAE) that putting it pretty much anywhere but C:\Program Files works.

I think what could confuse some people is that old angabnd I know from 2.7.8 and up to 2.8.3 around there somewhere windows versions of angband had to placed in Crogram files to work, I found that out by reading the documentation from Ben Harrisons day's after I could not get the old windows versions of angband to work.
Nowdays I put everything into my documents, which makes them much easier to edit, add font's, delete old character saves and the like.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I think what could confuse some people is that old angabnd I know from 2.7.8 and up to 2.8.3 around there somewhere windows versions of angband had to placed in Crogram files to work, I found that out by reading the documentation from Ben Harrisons day's after I could not get the old windows versions of angband to work.
Nowdays I put everything into my documents, which makes them much easier to edit, add font's, delete old character saves and the like.

Actually I don't think it was C:Program files, it just had to be on C: in general.

[buzzkill]

Angband doesn't install. Why would it be in program files?

I keep all my variants in a folder on my desktop. I keep everything on my desktop.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Angband doesn't install. Why would it be in program files?

I keep all my variants in a folder on my desktop. I keep everything on my desktop.

Not programs files specifically, this is what I was talking about.


To install Angband v2.7.8:

-- create a directory C:\ANGBAND,
-- copy wang278.exe (for 16 bit version) or wang278-32bit.exe (for 32 bit
version) to this directory,
-- run them to unpack,
-- run angband.exe.

If you wish to put it into a directory different from C:\ANGBAND, edit
angband.ini by hand and change all occurences of C:\ANGBAND.

What I added in this version:

-- sound support;
-- Alt+key, Shift+Alt+key etc can be used in keyboard mappings.

For general bug reports e-mail Ben Harrison (benh@linc.cis.upenn.edu),
for Windows specific bugs e-mail Skirmantas Kligys (kligys@scf.usc.edu).
Read Usenet group rec.games.roguelike.angband.

Have fun!

[Timo Pietilä]

Well Timo I really don't agree with you on that, I know what works for me, and hey it's worth a suggestion, I would much rather be longed on as an administrator to many any change I desire as the sole user of a computer then just a user, but hey different strokes for different folks.

There are security concerns. If you are admin, anything compromising your system using your credentials has full access to system, if you are user then it has access only where you have access, which is much less. There are a lot more malware trying to access your computer using your credentials than there are that try to use some security hole and gain access to full system. It doesn't even need to be any malware, a badly behaving program can cause problems with full admin rights.

If you know what you are doing you don't even need anti-virus in Windows systems. No viruses or other malware in my XP for now 8 years. Never needed to reinstall or anything other either.

If you need to access something that needs admin-rights in Win7 or Vista there are UAC, runas and switch user if everything else fails to give you that access. I rather have admin-rights for one user that I use for administering system and normal user which I use for normal use.

There simply is no reason to run computer with full admin rights. Ask linux-users, do they login as root every time they use the computer. Same thing in modern Windows.

[Timo Pietilä]

The Angband folder is located in C:\Program Files\Games\Roguelikes That's standard, isn't it?

That's for programs that are actually designed to work in windows systems. No user-specific config files or data there, only the actual program.

In perfect world if angband would be configured for Windows you would have program in %programfiles%(x86) and /lib/apex, /lib/bone, /lib/user and /lib/save in your profile in %appdata%/local or %appdata%/roaming (small enough that it could be in roaming IMO), and all editing needed would be made inside the program and you would never need to change /lib/pref after install. That's a multiuser setup.

For angband this is not the case, so install things somewhere else. I have different angband versions in my data disk in \games\angband\

[Timo Pietilä]

Not sure if this is a problem unique to Vista, haven't been able to try the latest Angband on other platforms, yet.

Basically, what is happening is that wall blocks are not showing up anywhere in the game

I managed to replicate this. For some reason no walls are visible unless I drink potion of enlightement. Then they show up just to disappear again as soon as you open options in main window. Also when I was walking in enlightement -lighted corridor Arkenstone didn't light up floor, and I could not see the floor. This is with 3.4, but not with 3.3. Don't have a clue what is causing this, but it has to be some sort of bug. It seems that game is for some reason highlighting my char with yellow box (that one I do see).

Bug didn't affect other term windows until I changed what they should show, then all of them changed to blank as well.

Weird thing seems to be that going to options blanks the screen. Going in help-screen doesn't. Also it seems that anything that moves does show and as soon as I moved also the symbols for what I'm wearing appeared, but not my stats or other things.

64bit Win7.
Visual options:

enable nice graphics: no effect.
Bizarre display: no effect.
Different font selections: no effect.
Interacting with visuals: no effect.

Even turning graphics on with different tile settings: no effect.

All cause blank screen.

Now testing closing and restarting game....

OK, everything works perfectly again. Weird.

[Malak Darkhunter]

There are security concerns. If you are admin, anything compromising your system using your credentials has full access to system, if you are user then it has access only where you have access, which is much less. There are a lot more malware trying to access your computer using your credentials than there are that try to use some security hole and gain access to full system. It doesn't even need to be any malware, a badly behaving program can cause problems with full admin rights.

If you know what you are doing you don't even need anti-virus in Windows systems. No viruses or other malware in my XP for now 8 years. Never needed to reinstall or anything other either.

If you need to access something that needs admin-rights in Win7 or Vista there are UAC, runas and switch user if everything else fails to give you that access. I rather have admin-rights for one user that I use for administering system and normal user which I use for normal use.

There simply is no reason to run computer with full admin rights. Ask linux-users, do they login as root every time they use the computer. Same thing in modern Windows.

You cannot escape spyware no matter what you use in windows, Microsoft is itself spyware that constsntly tries to send information about your activites back to Microsoft servers.
Some modern games require you to make minor changes to security exceptions in order to run their programs and contact their servers, in order for the system to even run the game.
I myself have had no problems with virus or malaware and I can easily reformat a hardrive, I find it very annoying to have to switch users to gain admin rights, and I really do not feel the need for the aggravation of being logged on and being limited to what I can do, because I am logged on without admin rights. My computer use requires me to be logged on as admin, because basically that's what I am, I reformat, clean, download drivers, update, edit files, add firewall exceptions for certain programs, so no thank you I want to be logged on as an administrator.

[Magnate]

You cannot escape spyware no matter what you use in windows, Microsoft is itself spyware that constsntly tries to send information about your activites back to Microsoft servers.
Some modern games require you to make minor changes to security exceptions in order to run their programs and contact their servers, in order for the system to even run the game.
I myself have had no problems with virus or malaware and I can easily reformat a hardrive, I find it very annoying to have to switch users to gain admin rights, and I really do not feel the need for the aggravation of being logged on and being limited to what I can do, because I am logged on without admin rights. My computer use requires me to be logged on as admin, because basically that's what I am, I reformat, clean, download drivers, update, edit files, add firewall exceptions for certain programs, so no thank you I want to be logged on as an administrator.

+1. Although I never log on as root in Linux, I *always* log in as Administrator in Windows. It's just too painful not to.

The difference is that root privileges are VERY rarely needed in Linux, because it's much much better designed. In Windows I need them every five minutes.