Red Alert installer for Original CDs/ISOs (win xp/vista/7 32&64)

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Since some people got problems installing red alert from the original CDs/ISOs i decided to create an installer for it

This installer is also able to patch The Ultimate Collection and The First Decade with the features listed below

 

Instructions:

Install via Web: This new feature downloads the freeware ISO files directly from the official EA server and installs em automatically, no CD mounting or burning needed anymore

 

Install from CD: just insert the red alert CD, start the installer and choose the drive (in version 3.00 choose CD-Installation)

 

Install from ISO: Either mount the ISO with a tool like Daemon tools or extract the ISO with 7-zip/winrar/etc.. to any folder on your HDD, start the installer and choose the drive/folder (in version 3.00 choose CD-Installation)

 

Patch Ultimate Collection / First decade:

Don't change the default installation folder if you wish to update, the installer will automatically find it

 

Features:

• Does a complete install with videos/music including no-cd patch
• Patches the game to 3.03p-Iran
• Installs the game in the language of your choice (english/german/french/spanish)
• Compatible with ARDA
• Works on Windows XP Vista 7 8 32&64
• Supports Aftermath/counterstrike
• Offline LAN support (cncnet UDP patch)
• Complete automatic Full Game Web-Installer
• Adds ddraw (makes the game run stable)
• Adds cncnet (for online play)
• Adds xwis/westwood online (for online play)
• Adds 2 Map packs (50 Most played online maps / 66 cooperation maps)
• Adds High resolution patch
• Adds raed map editor
• Adds interior Theater fix (fixes invisible ore and bibs)
• Adds optimized hotkeys including tutorial
• Adds DDwrapper (like ddraw but faster)
• Adds configuration tool (from Iran/PortableRA)
• Adds Red Alert Launcher (from Iran/PortableRA)

Download:

RA1 installer

 

YouTube Tutorial:

 

######### CREDITS #########

 

Iran: 3.03p-Iran, Config, Launcher..

hifi: cncnet, ddraw, patches..

tore: www.cnc-comm.com - Home of the RA1installer

Nyerguds: Various files and contributions

AlexB: Various ideas/files taken from his Arda project

bitpatch.com: ddwrapper

Understorm: IPX to UDP LAN patch

CChyper: Plenty of RA-code research and contributions to 3.03p-Iran

seven: hotkeys

[CCG]epsilon: spend a lot time with me to create the spanish language pack

Boris: Help with the russian language pack (old)

Electronic Arts: for making Red Alert 1 freeware

 

The following people helped to translate the installer:

GiftS, Pichorra, Lovehandles, [CCG]epsilon

Edited March 18, 2014 by FunkyFr3sh

[Plok 316]

Don't forget these:

 

Counterstrike Disc

Aftermath Disc

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Don't forget these:

 

Counterstrike Disc

Aftermath Disc

 

Yes its currently not working for the expansions, i thought about adding them to the installer since those two cds only got 3mb of usefull files

 

For those who want to have the expansions download the AM/CS Addon (3mb) 303p2+TLF from redalert95.tk and copy the files to your red alert folder

 

Edit: Installation now supports Aftermath/Counterstrike CDs (only if Full Install is disabled)

Edited July 8, 2012 by FunkyFr3sh

[Nyerguds 100]

I made an installer of the 3.03 patch that does basically the same thing... you just copy all stuff from the CD's Install folder, and install the patch onto that.

 

http://www.commandan...-64-bit-systems

 

Didn't include cncnet, arda or any other enhancements into that though, or nocd (except for TFD). It does have the old LAN UDP patch, and an option to add the small infantry patch.

[Sonarpulse 1]

What we really should do is make a repository to "build" all the data from scratch. Make a folder for each mix file, and a make file that compiles the mix. Making a command line tool to make mixes would be pretty easy as the XCC Utilities are open source. I might fork Hifi's P-series repository just for this purpose, and add on option that avoids modifying the executable so Arda can be used too.

 

This should help with the fact that it's getting increasingly difficult to set up a "compleate" Red Alert install. Of course, once it's all made a fancy-schmancy NSIS installer is always nice, but seeing that RA can be made to no longer rely on the registry, is probably not that important

Edited June 21, 2012 by Sonarpulse

[AlexB 8]

I started to create an installer that asks for all the disks and creates a combined main.mix (implemented in .Net). It's not quite done, the mix generation works, but the UI, error handling and related stuff is not finished yet. And it needs twice the size of the combined main mix as temporary space.

[Sonarpulse 1]

Well, I started on my project. https://github.com/Sonarpulse/CnC-Red-Alert it's nominally a fork of hifi's project, but I am going to create a new branch that will assemble Main mix, and then use http://git-scm.com/book/ch6-7.html to merge them. So in the end there will be two sub-directories /data (basically an automated recreation of what I did with my mixfile torrent) and /patch (corresponding to hifi's work), and the game will be built in the root directory.

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

I made an installer of the 3.03 patch that does basically the same thing... you just copy all stuff from the CD's Install folder, and install the patch onto that.

 

http://www.commandan...-64-bit-systems

 

Didn't include cncnet, arda or any other enhancements into that though, or nocd (except for TFD). It does have the old LAN UDP patch, and an option to add the small infantry patch.

 

didnt tried this one yet hehe

 

What we really should do is make a repository to "build" all the data from scratch. Make a folder for each mix file, and a make file that compiles the mix. Making a command line tool to make mixes would be pretty easy as the XCC Utilities are open source. I might fork Hifi's P-series repository just for this purpose, and add on option that avoids modifying the executable so Arda can be used too.

 

This should help with the fact that it's getting increasingly difficult to set up a "compleate" Red Alert install. Of course, once it's all made a fancy-schmancy NSIS installer is always nice, but seeing that RA can be made to no longer rely on the registry, is probably not that important

 

I started to create an installer that asks for all the disks and creates a combined main.mix (implemented in .Net). It's not quite done, the mix generation works, but the UI, error handling and related stuff is not finished yet. And it needs twice the size of the combined main mix as temporary space.

 

Well, I started on my project. https://github.com/Sonarpulse/CnC-Red-Alert it's nominally a fork of hifi's project, but I am going to create a new branch that will assemble Main mix, and then use http://git-scm.com/book/ch6-7.html to merge them. So in the end there will be two sub-directories /data (basically an automated recreation of what I did with my mixfile torrent) and /patch (corresponding to hifi's work), and the game will be built in the root directory.

 

Sounds nice, that would be perfect

[Sonarpulse 1]

Well, the upload is going to take hours, but so far all good.

[Sonarpulse 1]

OK, git get's pretty slow with big binary files, especially with things like mix files and tarballs which trade quantity of files per size of files, so am going to split the history of the data branch into two seperate unrelated branches (to be concatenated when git is faster hopefully). It will look like this:

Backup-Branch------------------------------------------------------------\
 |	  |					   |									 |
ISOs Unpacked_CDS   redalert.mix+main.mix_sub-mixes_extracted   All_mixes_extracted
Mix-Branch--------------------------\
   |					  | | | |
All_mixes_extracted_(again)  [Later revisons]

 

Also, I might split the utility code so we would have:

/-------------------------------------------------------------\
|Repository: Red Alert										|
|-Branch: Backup			  -- (same as above)			  |
|-Branch: Patch Data (branch) -- Hifi's red alert asm snipits |
|-Branch: Mix Data (branch	-- (same as Mix-Branch above)   |
|															 |
|-Branch: Master											  |
|  -Subtree: Patch Data									   |
|  -Subtree: Mix Data										 |
|  -Module:  exe Patcher/master							   |
|  -Module:  XCC Utilities/console_app						|
\-------------------------------------------------------------/
/-------------------------------------------------------------\
|Repository: exe Patcher									  |
|-Branch: Hifi's tool, not the snipits of asm				 |
\-------------------------------------------------------------/
/-------------------------------------------------------------\
|Repository: XCC Utilities									|
|-Branch: console application (to be made)					|
|-Branch: GUI (clone of original svn)						 |
\-------------------------------------------------------------/

 

thread about my git project is continued here: http://forums.cncnz.com/topic/16989-red-alert-git-repository/

Edited June 25, 2012 by Sonarpulse

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Updated to 1.3:

 

Better Aftermath/counterstrike support

Map packs updated

Added high resolution patch

[PurpleGaga27 37]

I started to create an installer that asks for all the disks and creates a combined main.mix (implemented in .Net). It's not quite done, the mix generation works, but the UI, error handling and related stuff is not finished yet. And it needs twice the size of the combined main mix as temporary space.

 

The combined main.mix I did using the old RA Mix tool (the DOS version) actually worked in both versions 2.0 and 3.03, but I have no plans to release a 757 MB file to the public that contains all movie clips (except the The Lost Files from RA Retaliation in which I could not get them to work) and all Ant, Counterstrike and Aftermath missions. (excluding multiplayer maps which happens to remain in expand.mix and expand2.mix files)

 

I hope your simplified installer works.

Edited September 10, 2012 by zocom7

[Plok 316]

but I have no plans to release a 757 MB file to the public that contains all movie clips (except the The Lost Files from RA Retaliation in which I could not get them to work) and all Ant, Counterstrike and Aftermath missions. (excluding multiplayer maps which happens to remain in expand.mix and expand2.mix files)

I have movies from the original RA and the Ant Missions from CS cutscenes. (AM didn't have cutscenes on its own - Retaliation did)

 

Part 1 (195 MB)

Part 2 (195 MB)

Part 3 (42 MB)

 

To unpack the file, you need to download all files into the same directory, avoid changing the filenames of the .rar files and extract the package in the game directory through the first part.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Plokite_Wolf

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

 

 

The combined main.mix I did using the old RA Mix tool (the DOS version) actually worked in both versions 2.0 and 3.03, but I have no plans to release a 757 MB file to the public that contains all movie clips (except the The Lost Files from RA Retaliation in which I could not get them to work) and all Ant, Counterstrike and Aftermath missions. (excluding multiplayer maps which happens to remain in expand.mix and expand2.mix files)

 

I hope your simplified installer works.

 

If u want to have the full game in 1 folder just download fullra from redalert1.com and AM/CS+lostfiles from redalert95.tk

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Don't forget these:

 

Counterstrike Disc

Aftermath Disc

 

down u got any other links ?

[Plok 316]

Ouch. CnCForums seems to have died

 

Anyway:

 

Counterstrike @ The ISO Zone

Aftermath @ The ISO Zone

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

R.I.P. CnCForums

 

thanks for the links

[Nyerguds 100]

Ouch. CnCForums seems to have died

The hell? As far as I know it's hosted by Chickendipper's own hosting company :|

[Sonic 292]

Its the just the http://www.cncforums.com domain has expired. I guess Chickendippers forgot to renew it.

[Nyerguds 100]

But it's his own company. He's the one it has to be renewed FROM :|

[Plok 316]

CnCWorld / CnCForums is back online. However, the old links will give you an "authentication expired" message. New links:

 

Counterstrike @ CnCWorld

Aftermath @ CnCWorld

[Sonic 292]

Same error with those links as well. Probably some sort of random referrer link protection going on. Just go to http://www.cncforums.com/new/local_links.php?catid=135 and download direct from that page. They are easy to find.

[Nyerguds 100]

Or just link to the actual item pages

 

http://www.cncforums.com/new/local_links.php?catid=135&linkid=419

http://www.cncforums.com/new/local_links.php?catid=135&linkid=420

 

(Takes some url manipulation to get these pages )

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Updated to 2.00

 

It now turns your old CD's into a PortableRA version with the new Config tool/Game Launcher etc..

Edited January 26, 2013 by FunkyFr3sh

[FunkyFr3sh 7]

Updated to 3.00:

 

Added: Install via Web

This new feature downloads the freeware ISO files directly from the official EA server and installs em automaticly, no CD mounting or burning needed anymore

 

Added: Ultimate Collection and First Decade patcher

You can use it as a patcher for the Ultimate Collection and First Decade (turns it into a portableRA kind of installation)