[REL] Vista Game Explorer Editor

[Ryan R]

Wow - been busy here - guess that's why I haven't heard from Jay in a while :)

I tested J's little alpha app before he uploaded it - didn't work on my Vista PC (no SP1 and .NET 3.5 not installed). But I had a virtual PC with Vista SP1 (and nothing else) installed - which worked. The alpha app won't work on XP even if it has the .net installed.

If you have Vista SP0 with 3.5 .NET installed and it still doesn't work, my guesses are that you either need to look at DirectX versions that might have it - or Julius needs to put the linq class directly in his installer and register it on the users system.

So I guess we can only confirm that this works on Vista SP1 for now.

My new PC is physically built - minus two sticks of DDR3 RAM which no shop has in stock for the nexct few days - when I get that all setup I'll be able to really get back into coding the rest of the front-end features planned. I'm also thinking of dual booting Win XP Pro, Vista Ultimate x86 and Vista Ultimate x64 (not sure which of the latter will be my primary OS as of yet).

[72001]

Yeah sorry I didn't explain myself at all well there so heres the understandable explanation.

The icon/picture shown on the WMI Provided Games is always the icon just enlarged as per these two screenies:

view style Tile

view style Large Icon

The icon can be selected but then when another tab is selected nothing is displayed, or if another icon was clicked on first then all the info for that game would be displayed and not the crysis info.

ie only crysis clicked on:

or The witcher icon clicked first and then crysis icon chosen:

I cannot give you the RAW XML as it doesnt display it unless you can tell me another way of getting at it.

I have 8 games that are "games for windows" and use the VGE and Crysis is the only one that does this.

Clear as mud but hope this helps.

Would you like me to uninstall crysis and then reinstall or stay as is at the moment?

Schis

schis, Thank you for the pictures. It was more helpful then before when you were trying to explain and I was not understanding the problem. And I guess obviously you cannot give me the GDF_XML because you cant easily see it through the editor.

What I can say I think is happening is for some reason crysis is being looked at as a unsupported game. Did you make that link in the Game Explorer by dragging the crysis icon in? or did Windows make that link for it self.

If crysis was dragged from a link on the desktop to the games explorer then that could be the reason for the anomaly.

If this was the version that I or ryan have then you had you would be able to just click Update Game and specify the dll to update with but I do not want to give a version that writes out until we have the small bugs worked out first.

Please do the same thing I asked ryorran and KzBao to do and post up your entire

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameUX\

Registry key for me to review And I will get to the bottom of it and let you know from there what action to take.

I will be waiting on your response.

@RyanR.

Hey Hey, Glad to see you around, I hope you get your computer back in action soon so we can work on this more.

I have ran the Update on a Vista Machine without SP1 and it worked fine so I think so long as you have the 3.5 .Net you should be fine.

If it comes down to Linq being such a problem then we will either not use Linq or Include the dll for Linq if that can be done in some way.

Anywho glad to see you around, welcome to the Party ;)

[schis]

Please do the same thing I asked ryorran and KzBao to do and post up your entire

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameUX\

Registry key for me to review And I will get to the bottom of it and let you know from there what action to take.

I will be waiting on your response.

Hah did I put the crysis icon there myself, hell no I'm lazy and if windows does something for me I let it ;)

Looking at the registry it points to the vistaEssentials.dll which I have checked and seems to be ok, as far as I can tell anyway.

The other thing is it works perfectly fine in the VGE as below:

Heres the export of the GameUX (Crysis is {05165D57-8EA7-427A-A940-EE1FE18CFBB4})

Schis' GameUX

This may also be of use take from the vistaEssentials.dll

<GameDefinitionFile xmlns:baseTypes="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:GamesExplorerBaseTypes.v1" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:GameDescription.v1">

<GameDefinition gameID="{CDC82B4A-7540-45A5-B92E-9A7C7033DBF2}">

<Name>Crysis</Name>

<Description>Stunning Sci-Fi first person shooter in a frozen paradise. Brain sucking aliens are invading earth. They are living in a zero-gravity environment and feed from human bodies that are conserved by a freeze beam.</Description>

<ReleaseDate>2007-11-16</ReleaseDate>

<Genres>

<Genre>Action</Genre>

</Genres>

<Ratings>

<Rating ratingSystemID="{C705DCF4-6AFE-4f4f-BC51-21807E4E5CFB}" ratingID="{B72233AA-D3F0-4258-8E32-94C99F38160E}" />

<Rating ratingSystemID="{768BD93D-63BE-46A9-8994-0B53C4B5248F}" ratingID="{78D8CC82-372F-44e4-B70C-8944DB7BCC24}">

<Descriptor descriptorID="{0CFCF432-3544-4f78-9426-07A36843E6BA}" />

<Descriptor descriptorID="{D49A8F0C-B183-4a34-8D86-33F2DC0E2D6C}" />

<Descriptor descriptorID="{BE562A5F-2A80-4c28-9752-74C696E2ABAF}" />

</Rating>

</Ratings>

<Version>

<VersionNumber versionNumber="1.2.0.0" />

</Version>

<SavedGames baseKnownFolderID="{FDD39AD0-238F-46AF-ADB4-6C85480369C7}" path="My Games\Crysis\SaveGames" />

<WindowsSystemPerformanceRating minimum="3" recommended="5" />

<Developers>

<Developer URI="http://www.crytek.com">Crytek</Developer>

</Developers>

<Publishers>

<Publisher URI="http://www.ea.com">Electronic Arts</Publisher>

</Publishers>

</GameDefinition>

It is easy for me to reinstall as I have just formatted and reinstalled so i have all the saves backed up anyway but ill await your reply just incase it happens to anyone else.

Schis

Edited May 5, 2008 by schis

[72001]

Hah did I put the crysis icon there myself, hell no I'm lazy and if windows does something for me I let it ;)

Looking at the registry it points to the vistaEssentials.dll which I have checked and seems to be ok, as far as I can tell anyway.

The other thing is it works perfectly fine in the VGE as below:

Heres the export of the GameUX (Crysis is {05165D57-8EA7-427A-A940-EE1FE18CFBB4})

Schis' GameUX

This may also be of use take from the vistaEssentials.dll

<GameDefinitionFile xmlns:baseTypes="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:GamesExplorerBaseTypes.v1" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:GameDescription.v1">

<GameDefinition gameID="{CDC82B4A-7540-45A5-B92E-9A7C7033DBF2}">

<Name>Crysis</Name>

<Description>Stunning Sci-Fi first person shooter in a frozen paradise. Brain sucking aliens are invading earth. They are living in a zero-gravity environment and feed from human bodies that are conserved by a freeze beam.</Description>

<ReleaseDate>2007-11-16</ReleaseDate>

<Genres>

<Genre>Action</Genre>

</Genres>

<Ratings>

<Rating ratingSystemID="{C705DCF4-6AFE-4f4f-BC51-21807E4E5CFB}" ratingID="{B72233AA-D3F0-4258-8E32-94C99F38160E}" />

<Rating ratingSystemID="{768BD93D-63BE-46A9-8994-0B53C4B5248F}" ratingID="{78D8CC82-372F-44e4-B70C-8944DB7BCC24}">

<Descriptor descriptorID="{0CFCF432-3544-4f78-9426-07A36843E6BA}" />

<Descriptor descriptorID="{D49A8F0C-B183-4a34-8D86-33F2DC0E2D6C}" />

<Descriptor descriptorID="{BE562A5F-2A80-4c28-9752-74C696E2ABAF}" />

</Rating>

</Ratings>

<Version>

<VersionNumber versionNumber="1.2.0.0" />

</Version>

<SavedGames baseKnownFolderID="{FDD39AD0-238F-46AF-ADB4-6C85480369C7}" path="My Games\Crysis\SaveGames" />

<WindowsSystemPerformanceRating minimum="3" recommended="5" />

<Developers>

<Developer URI="http://www.crytek.com">Crytek</Developer>

</Developers>

<Publishers>

<Publisher URI="http://www.ea.com">Electronic Arts</Publisher>

</Publishers>

</GameDefinition>

It is easy for me to reinstall as I have just formatted and reinstalled so i have all the saves backed up anyway but ill await your reply just incase it happens to anyone else.

Schis

Well schis, again it seems the jokes on me :p I forgot that Crysis was a special case GDF. It contains No way to find the game executeable whatsoever in the registry or in the GDF_XML. I had modified my GDF_XML for Crysis to make it proper and so it read the version from the Crysis Exe but I had forgotten to change it back for debugging purposes. So I don't have to reinstall Crysis could you post up the VistaEssentials.dll file so I can use that to debug please?

I believe the inital fallback logic I had in the test app I sent RyanR was that if there was no way to find the GameExe and the GDFBinary was a DLL the fallback path to use for a gameExe would have to be the first link in the Play Link List.

Therefore I have just forgotten to ensure the logic was enabled in this test app. Send me the VistaEssentials.dll and I will temporarily replace mine with the one you have which is the origional and ensure the logic is enabled. After that is done I will ensure it is working properly.

What is weird is that in your case it found the icon from the dll but it wouldnt display the GDF_THUMBNAIL. Very weird.

Since it is working in Game Explorer then I think its safe to say you don't need to reinstall. I will have to use the list you guys made to fix up some holes and try again.

:.

Games that have no way to find the GDF should use the first Play Link from the Games Explorer

Games that people Drag into the Games Explorer (Unsupported) should have a indicator that they need to have a GDF made.

Spelling on the various forms needs to be checked.

:.

And I will see if I can add some additional try's and catch's to fix other problems which might be caused by one of the expected dependencies not being there.

Then after that maybe we can finally move forward to testing the editing of existing installed games or somthing!!!

Thanks again to everyone thus far for all the testing. It seems we are gonna have one very stable app when this is all finally said and done!!!

[schis]

Well schis, again it seems the jokes on me :p I forgot that Crysis was a special case GDF. It contains No way to find the game executeable whatsoever in the registry or in the GDF_XML. I had modified my GDF_XML for Crysis to make it proper and so it read the version from the Crysis Exe but I had forgotten to change it back for debugging purposes. So I don't have to reinstall Crysis could you post up the VistaEssentials.dll file so I can use that to debug please?

Here you go: VistaEssentials.dll but really I think you should reinstall Crysis cause you've got nothing better to do. :p

Thanks again to everyone thus far for all the testing. It seems we are gonna have one very stable app when this is all finally said and done!!!

Glad I could help and ready for round two and that perfect, stable app and I believe its us who should be thanking you and Ryan R.

Schis

[replm8]

Sorry, life got in the way the past few days. The online screen is working for me, but the class tester is still crashing -> looks like same exact issue that KzBao & RyoRan109 are having.

Please let me know if you would like to see any reg keys, error messages, etc.

[schis]

Sorry, life got in the way the past few days. The online screen is working for me, but the class tester is still crashing -> looks like same exact issue that KzBao & RyoRan109 are having.

Please let me know if you would like to see any reg keys, error messages, etc.

Replm8

There are issues with the current version and having games that just have icons in the VGE either ones you have put in yourself or ones that games have put in. That is where it can get tricky as it can look like they are made for the VGE when it is only a 256x256 full colour icon like CoD4. Easiest way to tell is right click on the game in the vge if it has "hide this game" it is a VGE enabled game if it has "Remove from list" it is just an icon - not VGE enabled.

If you take all of the "icons" out of the vge and try again then it should work. If not there is something more sinister at work and 72001 will need more info.

72001 I hope you dont mind me replying to this but thought it may help a little.

Schis

[ryoran109]

Nope: The icons that I know aren't in the VGE properly still say "Hide this game"...

[schis]

Nope: The icons that I know aren't in the VGE properly still say "Hide this game"...

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.

There are three types of "icon" that will be in the VGE these are:

1/ From a VGE ready game ie added by the game itself using info gained from files installed with the game.

2/ A game is installed that is in the http://www.gamesforwindows.com catalog. The info or icon will be updated in the VGE by info from the catalog.

3/ A game icon. This is just what it says an icon. It will have no further info when clicked upon (ie publisher, developer etc). It is not in the gamesforwindows catalog and is not automatically updated or it is in the catalog but has not yet been updated.

Games from 1 and 2 the app should work fine and when right clicked in the VGE will say "Hide This Game". Games from 3 cause the app to crash and it is these games that when right clicked upon in the VGE will say "Remove from List".

Just because it is a nice large pretty icon does not mean that it is either from 1 or 2. As per my earlier post CoD4 for example.

If you have .net framework 3.5 installed and if the app still crashes with no games from 3 then there is a more serious problem.

Hope this helps

Schis

[ryoran109]

I used VGEE to make all my icons into standard games. Does that count?

[schis]

I used VGEE to make all my icons into standard games. Does that count?

Hmm thats a good question, Ryan R or 72001 will have to answer that as im not entirely sure what the VGE editor did.

Looking at it I am assuming that the VGEE fooled the VGE into thinking it was a game that was part of the gamesforwindows catalog and therefore not just an icon.

Give me a while and i'll have a test or two and see what I can find out, that is if Ryan or 72001 don't beat me to it.

Sorry I can't answer you straight off.

Schis

[schis]

I used VGEE to make all my icons into standard games. Does that count?

OK done some more testing.

It would appear that although the VGE editor could fool the VGE with just a registry entry it cant fool the app, it is still only seeing the game as an icon. 72001 will be able to give you the explanation as to why but I should think its because the app looks at more than just the registry entry and it is unable to find what it is looking for because with a game that has been edited with the VGEE it isnt there.

So until the next version of the app comes out you are a bit stuck, unless you get rid of all the icons you edited with the VGEE.

If you want to remove the icons that you have edited with the VGEE it is quite simple. Just find the file that the icon is looking for ie where the play shortcut is pointing to (usually the game.exe) and rename that file or move it to another location. Restart windows and then rename or move the file back. It will no longer be in the VGE and there will be no references to it in the registry.

Schis

[schis]

I've delved a little deeper and looked at what the VGE does.

It will look at the registry entry for the game and look for the ConfigGDFBinaryPath. This will normally point to the .exe file if it is a game for windows except in special cases (only one I've found so far and thats Crysis) where it is a separate .dll file. The file it looks at contains all the information for that game description, publisher, developer, age rating, performance rating etc.

If however the game is not written for the VGE and if its part of the gamesforwindowscatalogue then the icon in the VGE will be updated. In these cases the ConfigGDFBinaryPath points to a single .dll file for all games in the catalog (infact the .dll file is the catalog) C:\Windows\system32\GameUXLegacyGDFs.dll. This file contains all the info required by the VGE that cannot be added by a registry entry ie age rating and performance rating.

What 72001's app is doing is allowing everything to be updated and for this to happen not only is it looking at the registry but it is looking for the file with the age rating and performance rating in ie the ConfigGDFBinaryPath. The app at the moment is crashing if it cant find the info.

So to sum up unless the game installed in the VGE has a valid ConfigGDFBinaryPath then the app will crash:

Only games written for the VGE or games in the games for windows catalog will work with the app (in my earlier post case 1 and 2).

Games with only an icon whether updated by the VGEE or not will cause the app to crash (in my earlier post case 3).

I hope this helps with clearing up what, at the moment, will cause the app to fail.

72001 the issue with Crysis and the reason the app can still find the icon is the icon is written into the .exe file as with all custom icons so it shows as the custom icon in all other windows apps ie explorer.

Schis

Edited May 8, 2008 by schis

[schis]

Couple of errors with above post - sorry wrote it quick before took kids to school.

It does not matter where the xml info is stored as long as it is pointed to in the registry.The file that it looks at normally has all the info in publisher, ratings etc and also the path to the executables. There are more games than Crysis that store this info in another .dll file but the differing thing with Crysis which 72001 pointed out earlier is that Crysis does not have part of the xml that points to the game executables. Hence the trouble with the Crysis icon I had earlier. However this poses another question where did the icon that Crysis does have in the app come from?

The only answer I have for that is that it is getting it from the shortcut that is pointing to the .exe not the .exe itself and therefore can only show the icon which is 32x32 or 48x48 and not the gdf thumbnail image.

Sorry for the above errors should check my posts more thoroughly.

Schis

[Ryan R]

I hate to dissapoint you schis with all your researching, but VGEE is even more simpler than that.

All it does is check which games have a 'BoxArt' reg key the points to a URL address. It then assumes that these are supported legacy games, which can be copied, then the coped versions are edited to reflect the information you are adding as a new game.

The new app is completely different - it looks to the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) which lists only the games from causes 1 and 2.

When E-Explorer is finished - I'll see if I can write up a converter app to automatically trasfer VGEE-added games to proper WMI-inserted games.

Otherwise in the Load Game screen you can click the 'Restore VGE' link to delete all VGEE-added games immediately and use EE to add them back.

At this stage, no import/export code has been added to EE, so I can't say 100% if EE will support the same standard of .vgi files - but there's always a possibility. It's a good practice to have a folder somewhere that contains .vgi files for all your games just in case. I also have copies of all the boxart image files too, but the boxart is also found within each .vgi file (assuming you're using 2.14 or later).

As mentioned previously, the only difference between versions 2.14 and 2.14a is the way it searches for BoxArt on the net when you click the 'Find BoxArt' button. You can use either version depending on which you prefer. 2.14 takes you to AllGame.com - where you can search for the BoxArt yourself. WIth 2.14a, it does an automatic search using the text in the 'Title' field using Google Images. IE users can then drag and drop the BoxArt images directly into VGEE's BoxArt area.

E-Explorer will automatically search Allgame.com, displaying all results within itself, so there should be no need to open a browser anymore unless AllGame.com doesn't know about it. BoxArt for all gaming platforms (ie PSX, N64, XBOX, etc) inc case you use emulators (if you have a working XBOX emulator then you'll have to let me know). :o)

[Trauma]

Kinda off-topic, but the Games for Windows Catalog ist awesome. :|

[KzBao]

yeah, so i reset my computer and tried it. it worked fine right after i reset it, but after i installed some games, the tester still crashes, even though all the games are properly installed through vista.

[schis]

Thanks for that Ryan.

I understood what the VGEE did, only changng the registry entries, but i did not realise that it was by checking the BoxArt regkey.

So to check my understanding.

The VGE utilizes information held in the GDF_XML which is contained a .dll file or .exe file that is either shipped with the game installed or in the case of a legacy game information is held in the GameUXLegacyGDFs.dll.

The age rating and performance rating cannot be added by a registry edit, however all other info can ie genre, publisher, developer, description and release date, release country and title.

Therefore my definitions:

A true "Game for Windows" comes with its own .dll or .exe containing the GDF_XML and GDF_Thumbnail. My earlier case 1.

A legacy Game where the information is held in the GameUXLegacyGDFs.dll. The GDF_XML contains only limited data and no GDF_Thumbnail as there are many games detailed and to do so would be either impracticle or impossible. The game is then updated by info in the registry and the artwork with the boxart reference in the registry. My earlier case 2.

A game that is neither of the above. Will not be added to the VGE unless done so by the user and when displayed will just display the icon. My earlier case 3. (Games that would be updated by the VGEE)

At the moment 72001's app is crashing with games from class 3, presumably as there is no GDF to interrogate and no info to display.

The games that have been edited with the VGEE are still as far as 72001's app is concerned just an icon with no GDF info as the VGEE did not add any, it just fooled the VGE into believing it was a legacy game (case 2) and added the required registry entries for the information.

You have stated the new app will gain info from the WMI which is GameID, GDFBinaryPath, InstanceID, Name, InstallScope and GameInstallPath. So as far as i understand it a file will still needed to be created and the GDFBinaryPath updated for a game from case 3.

One thing I do not understand however is why Crysis does not work in the app when it obviously can find the GDF files so why cannot the data be shown. I understand that 72001 states that it is because it does not contain the path of the executables but why should this matter when all the info is in the .dll that it has found?

I know you are both busy and Im sorry for taking up your time but I am trying to further my knowledge.

Thanks

Schis

Edited for spelling

Edited May 13, 2008 by schis

[schis]

yeah, so i reset my computer and tried it. it worked fine right after i reset it, but after i installed some games, the tester still crashes, even though all the games are properly installed through vista.

Which games have you installed?

[FroggieFrog]

Why aren't you making E-Explorer "Open-Source"?

The speed of development would increase significantly.

(Sorry I'm not a native english speaker)

[Ryan R]

A legacy Game where the information is held in the GameUXLegacyGDFs.dll. The GDF_XML contains only limited data and no GDF_Thumbnail as there are many games detailed and to do so would be either impracticle or impossible. The game is then updated by info in the registry and the artwork with the boxart reference in the registry. My earlier case 2.

Legacy games do have boxart, but not 256x256 icons. If they didn't have the boxart, VGEE wouldn't work

I'm not an expert on the WMI, etc, and have limited understanding of like yourself - that's where 72001 comes in :)

I'm not a big fan of keeping track over who has the latest version of a project worked on by a number of people, I'm fairly happy that Jay and I can finish this soon. My new PC is up and running, but annoyingly the motherboard is faulty, so I'm going to have to take it apart and get it replaced.

Then I can finish off the GUI, etc and release a beta version. If you really want to help, I'm still after icons/buttons to use in the GUI. See my earlier posts about this for details.

If 'case 3' games (ones added by VGEE, etc) cause Jay's program to crash and he doesn't come up with a fix, then we'll need to create a wizard that converts case 3 games to case 1 prior to use EE.

I have reserved future versions of EE to allow you to also manage movies and music albums in addition to just games, and also would like to add support for MS WMC remote controls. I do feel bad that it's taken this long to come up with a release, but my VGE is still as much of a mess as all of yours - I think Julius is the only one with a perfect VGE at this stage :)

Suggestions/requested features are welcome to help keep you busy

[schis]

Legacy games do have boxart, but not 256x256 icons. If they didn't have the boxart, VGEE wouldn't work

I'm not an expert on the WMI, etc, and have limited understanding of like yourself - that's where 72001 comes in :)

I'm not a big fan of keeping track over who has the latest version of a project worked on by a number of people, I'm fairly happy that Jay and I can finish this soon. My new PC is up and running, but annoyingly the motherboard is faulty, so I'm going to have to take it apart and get it replaced.

Then I can finish off the GUI, etc and release a beta version. If you really want to help, I'm still after icons/buttons to use in the GUI. See my earlier posts about this for details.

If 'case 3' games (ones added by VGEE, etc) cause Jay's program to crash and he doesn't come up with a fix, then we'll need to create a wizard that converts case 3 games to case 1 prior to use EE.

I have reserved future versions of EE to allow you to also manage movies and music albums in addition to just games, and also would like to add support for MS WMC remote controls. I do feel bad that it's taken this long to come up with a release, but my VGE is still as much of a mess as all of yours - I think Julius is the only one with a perfect VGE at this stage :)

Suggestions/requested features are welcome to help keep you busy

You may have misunderstood me I agree Legacy games do have boxart, which as you know are downloaded, but they do not have a GDF_Thumbnail. Also alot of the "games for windows" I have looked at do not have a 256x256 icon in the .dll or.exe but only up to 48x48 and they use the GDF_Thumbnail in the VGE (The only exception to this I have seen so far is World in Conflict which uses the icon in the VGE oh and the standard windows games - minesweeper etc.). The GDF_Thumbnail being a .png not an .ico which is only acessed by the VGE hence no nice large pretty icon in other folders. There are also games that have both 256x256 icon and GDF_Thumbnail, ie NWN2, but it would appear that if a game has a GDF_Thumbnail then this has priority over the icon in the VGE.

One other thing you may be able to help me with is the age certification. So far I can get it to display by using IsSigned in the registry and setting the value to "1". However I have looked at other games that also have this entry set to 1 and they do not display the ratings ("games for Windows Games" for instance Crysis, C&C Kanes Wrath) . All I can find on the matter is that unless the game is certified then the ratings wont be used by the VGE but I can't work out why these are not showing and yet the ones I have manually edited do. This is not really helpful if you want windows to limit the games shown by parental control as obviously there is nothing to go on. I presume microsoft charge for the certification hence why alot of developers wont use it.

Personally I have no problem with this taking a while to come out and I wish I could help with your icons, I have done .png images for games that do not have GDF_Thumbnails but I'm not great at doing smaller icons but I'll put my hand to it and see what I can come up with.

Schis

[Ryan R]

Thanks for the offer schis.

If you can imagine the blue-ish buttons in WMP 11 down the bottom there, something of that theme would look best in EE (since it's basically the same colour scheme (if you turn Aero off in Vista or use WMP 11 in XP you'll see what I mean).

Could basically copy the Play button in WMP to EE for launching a game. Then there would icons for showing the Preferences page of EE. Then at the top it would be nice to have icons for Adding/Deleting/Editing games, etc (ie a + icon and a red cross for delete and so on. Then when in the editor you'd have icons for Saving changes or Canceling (green tick/red cross). All very similar to Windows explorer.

The idea is to blend EE in so that any noob to Vista thought EE came with it :)

[schis]

Thanks for the offer schis.

If you can imagine the blue-ish buttons in WMP 11 down the bottom there, something of that theme would look best in EE (since it's basically the same colour scheme (if you turn Aero off in Vista or use WMP 11 in XP you'll see what I mean).

Could basically copy the Play button in WMP to EE for launching a game. Then there would icons for showing the Preferences page of EE. Then at the top it would be nice to have icons for Adding/Deleting/Editing games, etc (ie a + icon and a red cross for delete and so on. Then when in the editor you'd have icons for Saving changes or Canceling (green tick/red cross). All very similar to Windows explorer.

The idea is to blend EE in so that any noob to Vista thought EE came with it :)

Is this what you mean:

Also been trying to get this damned age rating to work and it would appear that IsSigned has nothing to do with it. The certification must be held elsewhere so I'm stuck, just going to have to have games that are "No Rating Provided" which is just so damned useless as to why its there in the first place.

Its the same as description not being used makes me wonder if ms planned on it being a games platform ala steam ie purchase games from them for your vista system but then scrapped the idea for some reason.

Schis

[Ryan R]

You'll have to ask Julius about changing the ratings since he's the expert on that - he has already successfully setup and changed his own ratings - I uploaded screenshots proving this a few pages back.

But those buttons are great. I won't be putting words in them though (ie Add new game would just be the + sign). It wouldn't even necessarily have to be in the WMP style button. Those buttons would be more for the bottom toolbar and would only have symbols in them - I would just setup a tooltip showing what they stand for) or write them into a tutorial).

In XP, I think you can find icons in the Shell32.dll file that have the green tick and red cross (for adding/deleting) and then wouldn't be in the blue icons. On the bottom toolbar, so far we'd need a play button and a preferences button. I'm fairly sure there's a third one for something (and also to keep things symmetrical) but I can't exactly remember it's funtion.

Did you create those in a photo-editing program, or does VS that you do that a lot easier than I thought?