FAQ

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. How does the update checker operate ?
   
2. I get an "DFend.dat not found" error when running a self made installer package.
   
3. I know exactly which setting is on which tab in the D-Fend profile editor dialog. Where is this dialog gone in DFendX ?
   
4. I am using a special DOSBox build with some more features. Does DFendX support some of this features ?
   
5. I have setup "C:\Users\me\DFendX\VritualHD" as drive C but DOSBox says it has mounted "C:\Users\me\D-FEND~1\VIRTUA~1". What's wrong ?
   
6. How can I create an other language for DFendX ?
   
7. Is there an easy way of spell checking my new language file ?
   
8. Where has the "Edit default profile... (F5)" menu item gone ?
   
9. Can I use DFendX in Wine under Linux ?
   
10. I have keyboard problems the DOSBox keymapper cannot fix.
    
11. I get an error message when I try to install the DOSBox movie codec.

How does the update checker operate ?

To update DFendX you must download and run the installer for a newer version. There is no online update check currently.

I get an "DFend.dat not found" error when running a self made installer package.

The self made installer packages do not include DFendX or DOSBox. This means you have to install DFendX on the computer before you can use an installer package.

If you have installed DFendX in "user directory" mode (the default installation type), the target directory is still the DFendX program folder ("C:\Program Files\DFendX" for example) and not the data directory (something like "C:\Users\you\DFendX"). The data package installer will only read from this directory and only copy files to the data directory, so it can run without admin rights under Vista.

If you want to have an all inclusive package, install DFendX in portable mode to a directory, install or transfer the games to this installation and then make a zip archive of this directory or simply copy the whole folder to an USB stick. So you can show your games to others without any installation.

I know exactly which setting is on which tab in the D-Fend profile editor dialog. Where is this dialog gone in DFendX ?

DFendX has two profile editor dialogs integrated: The classic D-Fend style profile editor and the modern profile editor. Both dialogs offer all normal settings (settings also available in D-Fend). Which profile editor should be used can be configured in the program options dialog in the category "profile editor". This category will only be visible, if you choose "Advanced" as mode in the dialog.

I am using a special DOSBox build with some more features. Does DFendX support some of this features ?

Yes, DFendX supports the following CSV build features:

• Multiple floppy images per drive
• Mounting zip files (PhysFS support)
• 28 or 50 lines text mode
• Glide emulation
• VGA chipset and video RAM settings
• Printer emulation
• Some more things (new render types, new graphic cards, new MIDI device) can be activated by adding new default values.

To activate the GUI for this settings, open the program options dialog, switch it to advanced more and activate the settings you want to see in the "DOSBox CVS features" category.

All other special functions of the custom builds are not supported directly at the moment. But you can tell DFendX to write custom strings in the DOSBox conf file: All you have to do is writing the lines you want to have in the conf file in the "Custom settings" edit field in the "DOSBox settings" category (or in the edit field in the "Custom settings" sheet if you use the classic profile editor).

I have setup "C:\Users\me\DFendX\VritualHD" as drive C but DOSBox says it has mounted "C:\Users\me\D-FEND~1\VIRTUA~1". What's wrong ?

"C:\Users\me\D-FEND~1\VIRTUA~1" is the short name for "C:\Users\me\D-Fend Reloaded\VritualHD". DFendX translates the long name to the short name when building the DOSBox configuration file. The Cause is DOSBox can only handle 134 chars per command. So if the path is too long DOSBox perhaps will not mount it. To avoid this, DFendX changes the path name to the short version. If you want to turn this off anyway, you can disable the "Use short path names for mount commands" option in the "DOSBox" category of the program options dialog. (The option is only visible in advanced setup mode.)

How can I create an other language for DFendX ?

Just choose the menu item "Translate the program to your language" from the "Help making DFendX" better sub menu of the "Help" menu. Then choose "Start new language" and enter the name of the new language.

DFendX will then create a new language file and open it in the build-in language editor. The language editor shows tables for the different categories (menu, profile editor, setup dialog) with the English texts on the left side and (editable) your translations on the right side. All you have to do is make translations of the shown English strings. After closing the language editor you can activate your language from the setup dialog (its handled just like the predefined languages).

If you want to have your language in the next official DFendX release just mail the language file to me. (You can find the user defined language files in the folder "C:\Users\me\DFendX\Lang".) And of course you will get mentioned in the language files section of the program info dialog. Therefor you should attend one thing: Your name and the name of the language file are shown in any DFendX installation so make sure this two strings appear right under any chosen codepage/charset. (This means for example Cyrillic letters which are not defined in the English charset should not be used in the language name and in the author name.)

If your language file uses a special charset (like cyrillic) and this is the default charset on your computer, everything will look fine for you (and other people having the same Windows charset). But on systems with another default charset your language will look broken. To avoid this, you can tell D-Fend Reloaded to always use a special charset with your language file by setting the "Name=" key in the [CharsetSettings] section to one of the following values: ANSI_CHARSET, DEFAULT_CHARSET, SYMBOL_CHARSET, SHIFTJIS_CHARSET, HANGEUL_CHARSET, GB2312_CHARSET, CHINESEBIG5_CHARSET, OEM_CHARSET, JOHAB_CHARSET, HEBREW_CHARSET, ARABIC_CHARSET, GREEK_CHARSET, TURKISH_CHARSET, VIETNAMESE_CHARSET, THAI_CHARSET, EASTEUROPE_CHARSET, RUSSIAN_CHARSET. The default value "DEFAULT_CHARSET" tells DFendX to use the Windows default charset. There is one more thing to mention: The charset setting applys to all DFendX windows but sadly not to message boxes which are controled by Windows itself and will always use the Windows default charset.

Is there an easy way of spell checking my new language file ?

Word processors usualy have quite good spell checkers but if you copy the whole language file to a word processor you will get a lot of false error messages because the word processor also trys to correct the "CouldNotDeleteFile=" parts of the records. To avoid this you can use the following trick: Open the Windows Notepad, press the tab key, mark the inserted tabulator (8 fields of space) and copy it to the clipboard. Open the language file, open the replace dialog in notepad, write in the "search for" field "=" and paste in the tab in the "replace by" field. (This means replace all "=" by tabs.) Mark the whole file and copy it in an spread sheet. Mark the second column (only the values without the "CouldNotDeleteFile=" keys) and copy them to the word processor.

Where has the "Edit default profile... (F5)" menu item gone ?

Because the default template is also a template the option to edit the default template has moved to the templates editor. The default template will appear in the templates list of the template editor. To distinguish it from the normal templates the "Default template" text will appear in blue and you can not delete it.

Also the separate menu item to edit the default template has gone, the hotkey is still available. You can still reach the template profile editor via the F5 key.

Can I use DFendX in Wine under Linux ?

Running DFendX in Wine is only half-official supported. In the program options dialog in the category "Wine support" (only visible in advanced setup mode) you can configurate DFendX to remap the Wine drive letters (C:, D: etc.) back to the Linux path names (/mnt/sta3, /mnt/stb1 etc.) when creating conf files.

The way the create link menu command works can also be changed for use on a Linux system: If you activate "Switch link creation menu item to create Linux shell scripts", the create link menu command will create shell scripts for running DOSBox with the selected profile.

You can use the same DFendX installation in Windows and Wine (without changing the setup settings): By calling DFendX with a command line parameter including "WineMode" or "WineSupportEnabled" you can override the setting from the setup dialog and activate the Wine support. By calling D-Fend Reloaded with a command line parameter including "WindowsMode", "NoWineSupport" or "WineSupportDisabled" you can override the setting from the setup dialog and disable the Wine support. The parameters are case insensitive and you can also write a "-" or a "/" before them if you like to ("-winemode" for example will also be recognized).

I have keyboard problems the DOSBox keymapper cannot fix.

First of all try setting the SDL video driver to "Win DIB" in the DOSBox section of the DFendX setup dialog. If you still experience keyboard problems (in particular keys not recogniced by the keymapper, even more in particular the right shift key) and have pluged a Microsoft eHome receiver (the official remote control for the Microsoft media centre) to your system, please follow these steps:

1. Open the "Keyboards" section in the Device Manager.
2. Right-click "Microsoft eHome MCIR 109 Keyboard" and choose "Update Driver" (called "Update Driver Software" on Vista).
3. Choose "Browse my computer for software" (XP users have to tell it not to install automatically and say you will specify the location, then when it asks you where you would like it to search for drivers choose the option to choose from a list) then "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".
4. Make sure "show compatible hardware" is checked, then select "HID-compliant device" and click next. Click any remaining "OK" or "Finish" buttons after Windows has installed the driver.

The 109 keys driver is a Japanese keyboard driver. As long as you do not use a 109 keys keyboard doing this will not influence the functionallity of your keyboard or your remote control. (See also http://forums.logitech.com/logitech/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=6123)

I get an error message when I try to install the DOSBox movie codec.

To install a video codec you need admin rights on your system. On Windows XP most user always have admin rights and so can install the codec directly from the start menu. Under Windows Vista you need to give a program admin rights manually. Becuase the codec installer is a simple rundll call, it will not ask for admin rights automatically (like normal installers do). So you need to click on the start menu item with the right mouse key and have to choose "Start as admin".