Multiple D2 installations?

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Dank_Dark
Destroyer
7 | 1
Hi there dear Median XL community!

For some time now I've been thinking about installing mods for D2, as I've been playing the game for years now and would like to change things up a little.
Median XL and PlugY pretty much being the biggest mods for the game (as far as I can tell, at least), I thought I'd give them a try and become a little active here in the forums/with the community in general.

After spending the last few hours getting all sorts of things set up like Median, PlugY, and the Glide wrapper, I now have some questions that hopefully someone will be able to answer.

First and foremost, I would like to know if it is possible to have several installations of Diablo II on my PC. Since I already have a copy installed, the installer does not give me the option to install the game again. The thing is, I would like to have three versions of D2: One for both Median and PlugY, one for just PlugY, and finally "vanilla" D2 with the latest (1.14d) patch for online play.

I don't necessarily need three copies, just two would be fine too. But that brings me to my next question which is a little more specific.
I've noticed that using the Glide wrapper on version 1.13 has the game go through the symbol list (the infamous symbols that appear in the top left corner of the screen upon booting up the game) about three times, then the game loads the two splash screens before going through the symbol list one more time and then finally dropping me at the title screen. Every time I start or exit a game, it again goes through the symbols. The thing is, this does not happen on 1.14 (which is why I "need" an up-to-date copy). I need the Glide wrapper because it fixes my gamma and mouse speed problem.
Being able to use Glide on 1.13 without the horrible loading times would be amazing...
I'm on Win 8.1.

That concludes my questions!
If someone could help me out with either or both, I'd be very grateful! Many hours were spent browsing the web and trying out all sorts of different settings and game versions... Of course my issue has to be so specific that I can't find anyone else with my same problem, so I figured I'd try asking in a mod community where players likely have some experience with this sort of thing :D

Any additional info/tips are welcome!

Thanks for reading, and I can't wait to delve into this mod!

UPDATE:

After playing the mod for a few minutes, it crashed twice so far...
The error message is "UNHANDLED_[something, I forget] ACCESS_VIOLATION" with some number strings after.
What could be causing this?
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suchbalance
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HI,

Dank_Dark wrote:After playing the mod for a few minutes, it crashed twice so far...
The error message is "UNHANDLED_[something, I forget] ACCESS_VIOLATION" with some number strings after.
What could be causing this?


This is most likely caused by you not having the latest version. There were some hotfixes released shortly after Friday to fix those problems. Try redownloading from https://get.median-xl.com



Now, as far as multiple D2 installations go - every D2 folder contains everything the game needs to run, so theoretically you can just copy the whole thing. However there is only one registry entry which tells the game where to connect to for online play or where to save characters, so if you wish to play online on TSW and then on battle.net you will need to be running the appropriate registry files every time to change servers.

Another thing I would like to mention is that if you installed 1.14 from the latest blizzard installers then Median cannot run unless you use our launcher app. About the glide symbols - have you tried just clicking through those screens where the symbols cycle in the corner? At least on my pc, which is over 3 years old now, it skips them quite fast. If you want to get rid of it all together then you have to torrent the older 1.12 web installers, or use a cd, then update to 1.13c and set up d2se.
Istaryu
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With mods supporting D2SE (It is a mod manager for d2), you can use a single copy. It only holds the modded files for mods, so you save lots of space, and they each have built-in registry for joining realms.
Dank_Dark
Destroyer
7 | 1
suchbalance wrote:HI,This is most likely caused by you not having the latest version. There were some hotfixes released shortly after Friday to fix those problems. Try redownloading from https://get.median-xl.com


That is the version I was using.

suchbalance wrote:Another thing I would like to mention is that if you installed 1.14 from the latest blizzard installers then Median cannot run unless you use our launcher app. About the glide symbols - have you tried just clicking through those screens where the symbols cycle in the corner? At least on my pc, which is over 3 years old now, it skips them quite fast. If you want to get rid of it all together then you have to torrent the older 1.12 web installers, or use a cd, then update to 1.13c and set up d2se.


Hmm, I got the launcher and installed it, but it doesn't seem to work.
I get this screen upon booting it up:

Image

There is no button to launch it (I've messed with the settings and set the proper directory, but still nothing).
When launching through the Diablo 2.exe, I get the normal game but in version 1.13.
Looks like I will only be able to have either Median -or- Diablo 2 installed, and not both at the same time :(
No idea how to mess with the registry, but if that's only multiplayer related, I don't care much about it anyhow.

Istaryu wrote:With mods supporting D2SE (It is a mod manager for d2), you can use a single copy. It only holds the modded files for mods, so you save lots of space, and they each have built-in registry for joining realms.


I've messed with D2SE earlier today, but for some reason, it wouldn't do anything for me.
The only button that worked was "Run Diablo 2", the "Run Plugin" button did absolutely nothing - the program just closed.
I probably just don't know how to use the program properly...
I guess I'll try to find some documentation/tutorials on it :|
Istaryu
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Use Win XP SP 2 compability, that will solve everything i think.
Dank_Dark
Destroyer
7 | 1
Use XP SP 2 compatibility with the D2SE shortcut you mean?
Istaryu
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Dank_Dark wrote:Use XP SP 2 compatibility with the D2SE shortcut you mean?


I usually modify the exe itself, but that will work too.
Dank_Dark
Destroyer
7 | 1
Alright! Problem solved!
I took the time to go through a guide again step-by-step, and it solved every single issue I've had!

This is the guide I used. (running the program in Win 7 compatibility mode is the way to go for Glide!)

Loading times are gone, graphics are fixed, and I have my three different versions of D2! (well, no 1.14, but I only do SP anyway so yay!)

Thank you suchbalance & Istaryu for the help!
Istaryu
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Have fun :)