Creating A Ffxi Install Disk

Can you do it?

Any time Ive had to install a new hdd or reformat one and reinstall everything, ive always had to reinstall 11 along with everything else.
But since my disk is from back in 2007 with only 11-toah-cop-roz and a separate disk for Wotg when it came out, it has a looooot of other content to download along with a ton of updates that take forever to finish.
Can you create a new install disk or one with that content and current updates and what not? That way you could use the disk instead of DL them online.

I have a full copy of FFXI's installer, including SOA stuff that I pulled straight off a disk and it runs fine.

It probably wouldn't let you make a pretty installer, but as long as you're happy opening each folder yourself, then I can't imagine there being any problems with piling them all on a new disk.

I believe you can with the other expansions and updated POL versions. However, there are updates which can't be avoided regardless. But yes, you can place FFXI, POL and each of the expansions on a single disk. I forget the size so a bigger disc might be required.

An Installer might be easier to do.

Easier than opening a folder and hitting "Setup"?

That's all that an installer itself does, it just makes it look pretty for the user.

so.. how does one create just a disk for this?

write the files to a cd, download imgburn.

http://www.ninite.com

I used to have a FFXI install disc on DVD-Rs. I followed instructions on Bluegartr forums several years ago to make it. It involved getting an MSI editor to edit the MSI installer to point to the correct setup.exe files in each of the expansion packs. This way it won't ask for the discs and it'll just run the next setup.exe file.

Basically, my DVD-R looked like this:
FFXISetup.exe
setup.msi
..\pol
..\roz
..\cop
..\toau
..\wotg

(Something like that.)

You had to use a tool called Orca:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370557.aspx

Which is available in the Windows SDK for Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3138

You can simply just toss the FFXI and PlayOnline installation files plus the expansion packs into individual folders and burn them to a DVD-R ensuring that they're in their own individual folders. It's the simplest way. After that, it's just a matter of running the individual setup.exe files.

The other way is what I said above: Editing the setup MSI file so that you can automate the installations, but it can be a daunting task if you don't know how to do it.

Of course, the easiest way is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-XI-The-Ultimate-Collection/dp/B002SQNGX2

(It is the reason why I haven't bothered updating those DVD-Rs to Seekers of Adoulin. It saved myself the trouble.)

As for the updated files, the best way to download them from BlueGartr forums that other players have made available and burn them to DVD-R. You can make a self-extracting EXE using 7-zip and have it extract the updated DAT files and anything else to the directory you have FFXI installed to.

hmm.. some reason i was thinking they didnt sell those disks for pc anymore - moved everything to digital :/

edit: am i missing something or is there a reason why the new pc disk is ~$20 and the ones for xbox are ~$100

Because typically you can get the PC version still in stores, most of the console discs have been long sold out, it's pretty much supply/demand. Most PC owners download their copy digitally now.

If you need the setup files I can give you a copy of the installers, not really sure why you need to have it in all one installer, but if you want to take the time to slip them all into one, that's up to you.

As far as your cd's being old, as far as I've been able to tell, the time for update doesn't really change that much based on which discs you use, even though it should.

You could always do a full install then patch it from tehkrizz.net and then just do the file check/update which is probably the most up to date way to do it, and faster than doing it through all POL.

Or can do that last bit Aselin said...

hardest to find are PAL 360 discs, they're expensive as hell, NTSC aren't as bad.

Its not that i need it all on one disk. I don't care if they are all on separate ones or not. My original disk is just ffxi with the 3 expansions, then i have a separate disk from when WotG was released. Everything else i have to get through updates, which takes many many many hours. Thats where it gets annoying. And that was why i was thinking about a disk with more info that i could use.

--

SE store doesn't sell any pc disks. But they do sell Xbox disks. So i was expecting the xbox disk would be easier/cheaper to get then the PC.

Yeah but you could still get them elsewhere, and like I said: supply/demand, at least NA is lucky and can still get the NTSC 360 version via SE.

You can get everything post WOTG via updates except Seekers, I have an all in one I can update to you later, let me see if I can get permissions set right, I've gone through several iterations of my vm infrastructure since I uploaded those other files.

After installing, the best way to do updates is to download a collection of updates via BG or tehkrizz.net (yeah, that Krizz) and patch over the install, then do a file check.

If you don't need the installers at all, that's cool too. If you need just seekers, I can do that too. Let me see, if I remember right I made a torrent before and then uploaded the torrent file, I'll work on that later.

I've had that same thought process before-- create a new single FFXI installation disc(s) with the updated files.

The problem I ran into was that the CAB files had the DAT files stored in some kind of hash naming scheme or something.

This is how one CAB file looks like for the FFXI Abyssea Collection:



Unlike Windows installation discs which only have their file extensions altered, SE has to go ahead and alter the entire file name. So, simply adding updated DAT files into the CAB by using a CAB file software was out of the question.

The best method I can think of now is going to a website like tehkrizz.net and create a self-extracting file in 7-zip and extract the updated FFXI files into the FFXI installation directory. That's the only way unless there is some way to decipher what DAT file is what in the CAB files, and where they go.

that's interesting actually, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody figured out how to do that, but it's a lot of work imo.

edit: if somebody could actually make an updated one that didn't require a file check as well, that'd be even cooler, but hey.

that would probably require somebody from SE leaking the information as to how to do it, or some of our amazing Windower devs perhaps.