Tag: Dune 2000 gruntmods edition

It’s been a few months since we refreshed the site, and it’s time for the launcher to be updated as well. Here are the changes in the latest release:

Installer Changes

• Removed .net 3.5 installer in favor of using powershell with the following command:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName NetFx3 -All

This should prevent windows from prompting for it to be installed when you try to launch the config program or D2K+ tools

• Added web installer for .Net 4.8 to the installation process as it is required for the Mission Launcher
• Fixed an issue with the files for the Tile Attribute Editor that caused them to not appear in the install folder

Launcher Changes

Replaced the game launcher with a new version, completly rewritten from scratch

• Uses Chromium to display the news feed, allowing for a much smoother and better looking experience
• No longer uses the registry in favor of searching sub-folders for game files, allowing you to move the install folder after you install the game
• No longer requires .net framework to be installed to operate (other programs such as the Mission Launcher still require this)
• Now supports larger screen sizes, and has full support for windows resizing
• Now properly supports 32 bit Windows 8.1 and later
• New menu added for D2K+ Toolkit, with support for adding your own tools to the D2K+ Folder
• The updater is now part of the main launcher and no longer a seperate application, which should make update checks faster and smoother
• User interface is now more modern, while still keeping the same general design
• Added link to the Dune 2000 Community Discord

Base Game Changes

• Moved all documentation to the \Documentation directory and removed confusing references to other installers and exe files that are not relevant as we already include them in the installation
• Removed additional files that are no longer used from the game directory

Download

You can download the updated installer here, or download the update by using the game launcher for your existing version.

Another day another update. This time the focus was on better compatibility with cutscenes and some small optimizations to the launcher.

The English cutscene installer used to be bundled with the game installer as an option at install, with the other languages available as a download through gruntmods.com. This had a few issues, the biggest one being if someone decided after the fact that they wanted to install them they would need to visit the site and download the installer manually or reinstall the game. The second issue was that many players didn’t even know about the option to install through the web download and there was not a good way to communicate it in the launcher or installer.

An unrelated issue with changes to our hosting environment also caused the download in the previous version of the game to stop working, even though the download links were still valid.

Changes to the installer in this release:

• Cutscenes have been moved from the installer to an option in the Launcher
• The un-install sections have been cleaned up and simplified as few people choose to uninstall individual components of the game
• The calculating file size portion has been moved to the cutscene installer as without them being included in the initial installation the size is always the same
• Several install options and prompts have been cleaned up and reworded for additional clarity

Changes to the launcher in this release:

• A new button has been added that allows you to install any language of cutscenes that you want, or all of them if you so choose.
• The launcher should have focus when opened instead of staying behind other applications
• Resolved issues with the launcher not being sized correctly if the user manually resized it

The download for the full install is already available on the download page, if you have the previous version (1.6.3) installed you will be prompted to install a small update package when launching the game.

Its been a long time since the last update to the installer, and the previous version had 274922 downloads of downloads! Thats a lot for such an old game.

In order to celebrate the installers success, as well as to address the many community updates that have happened to the game, I have decided to create a new version of the installer that improves upon the previous ones in several ways. Changes include:

• Added updated Mission Launcher by Feda, allowing players to easily install mods made by the community and play them without menu changes or overwriting base game data
• Updated the main exe to support changes made by Klofkac that allow a huge amount of new mod features using his latest tool
• Added new tools from Klofkac to the D2K+ install
• Added additional installation logs to show what is happening while the installer is running
• Fixed an issue where the installer would not download the cutscenes
• Fixed incorrect music playing in Rise of the Mercenaries Mission 1 and 2
• Fixed the Mission briefings in the launcher and in game for Rise of the Mercenaries Mission 1 and 2
• Fixed issues with some of the base game missions having leftovers from previous versions of high resolution support, they are now the same as the versions included with the original cd
• Fixed the non functional updater, updates are checked before running the launcher, and a choice is given to run the update or skip it.
• Improved Launcher, it has been completly rewritten from scratch. Launcher changes include:
  -No longer requires administrator access to run the game or the launcher
  -Improved viewing of the updates page
  -Includes support for custom missions via Feda’s Mission Launcher
  -Code is more optimized and less buggy
  
• Improved the installation speed of the game
• Improved Cutscene installation, now happens without additional user interaction
• Improved the size of the installer, it is now 116mb smaller then pervious version
• Removed several files in the install directory that are no longer usedYou can head over to the download page to download the new version of the installer, in the coming weeks I will be working to try and make it even easier to install community content and expand the game’s potential. If you have any issues with the new version or ideas for how to improve it, please feel free to let me know.

Only 4 years since the last major site update! I guess that says a lot of about the site stability.

We were utlizing a CDN service to serve file downloads as the bandwidth was becoming pretty intensive for our existing file server. We had a minor issue the other month that resulted in the hosted files there becoming unavailable. Rather then risk this happening again, I have taken the liberty of upgrading the server infrastructure.

The site once again has all files on one centralized server, which will allow me to better stay on top of backups and updates. As this would increase the load on the server, I have also taken the chance to upgrade the hardware which should result in significantly improved download speeds and reduced load times.

I had to migrate all the file links manually, so if anything isn’t working please let me know.

Just because I like to show off performance increases, I will continue the tradition of posting a speedtest result after the upgrade.

Windows 11 is here! With that we have an updated version of the configuration program from FunkyFr3sh that should fix the following issues:

• “The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000022). Click OK to close the application.” Error message appearing when trying to start the game
•  Windowed view not working
• Using Alt + Tab key combinations causing freezing and crashing issues.

Download the full installer from the download page.

It’s that time again! Another small update to the installer to fix a few issues that have come up:

-Added updated Mission Launcher by Feda
-Fixed an Issue where music would not play in Rise of The Mercenaries Mission 2 when selected from the mission launcher
-Fixed an issue where the installer would not download the cutscenes

Download the full installer from the download page.