Crafty ...

Thank you so so much for trying. I have both installed!! Although I'm running windows 7
64-bit, I've got chesspad 2 w/ crafty win 32 w/ 23.3.

Hopefully all will run smoothly. I really appreciate everyone's help.

😀

Originally posted by choux
Thank you so so much for trying. I have both installed!! Although I'm running windows 7
64-bit, I've got chesspad 2 w/ crafty win 32 w/ 23.3.

Hopefully all will run smoothly. I really appreciate everyone's help.

😀

Glad to hear you got them running! Due to your success, I decided to try again. I reinstalled engines from scratch in ChessPad2, being sure to put the new engines and new engine ini files in folders located outside the Program Files folder. This time it did indeed work! (I still don't know what I did wrong the first time.)

I installed Crafty 23.3, both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. And I added the Crafty config file (named crafty.rc), and I got the opening book working, and I even got the skill level to work. (Specifying things like the opening book and skill level must be done in the crafty.rc file.)

I played a couple of games. (I lost the first one on time, won the second one. 🙂 ) It mostly worked OK, but seems a little glitchy at times. (The book is sometimes a little slow to load, and it froze up once when I promoted a pawn.) But it mostly seems to be working as advertised.

Good for you! For me you ask? DISASTER!! Every picture icon has turned blank and
Nothing will open without that box saying what do you want to open with?? wtf??
I've deleted the damn stuff but still things are worse - and to call Dell would cost
$250!! Why did I think this was a good idea.

Originally posted by choux
Good for you! For me you ask? DISASTER!! Every picture icon has turned blank and
Nothing will open without that box saying what do you want to open with?? wtf??

What, you mean every icon? Not just PGNs, but all kinds? That doesn't sound like a Chesspad configuration problem to me. It's more like a trojan has got into your system. Didn't Sasser do something like that after a while? If it really does refuse to open many different kinds of files, I'd have the box looked at by a professional.

Richard

Not one but two trojans. And $250 later. My bad. Never unzip files from the
internet. :'(

Originally posted by choux
Not one but two trojans. And $250 later. My bad. Never unzip files from the
internet. :'(

Never unzipping files from the internet seems overly extreme. You'd never get anything done in that case. I've had almost no problems with unzipping chess engines and chess programs. But get a good antivirus scanner, everyone needs one.

Your problem could have been due to a virus, but it almost sounds like you have your program-opening file association settings in your Windows OS messed up.

My ChessPad installation also got messed up yesterday. The program wouldn't open, I was getting exception error messages all over the place. Rebooting didn't work, uninstalling and reinstalling ChessPad didn't work. I finally uninstalled ChessPad and found a virtualstore folder that hadn't gotten deleted. I deleted that, and then I was able to reinstall ChessPad with success. It's working fine now. (I played a couple more games against Crafty at a weak skill level and didn't observe any glitchy behavior. Sorry, I still like Arena better, though.)

"Your problem could have been due to a virus, but it almost sounds like you have your program-opening file association settings in your Windows OS messed up."

Seriously?? I watched my system become completely eradicated
in a matter of moments. It was like watching dominos fall. It was
the Systemroot System32 trojan. And I have Nortons, it didn't pick up a
whiff of it.

Originally posted by choux
"Your problem could have been due to a virus, but it almost sounds like you have your program-opening file association settings in your Windows OS messed up."

Seriously?? I watched my system become completely eradicated
in a matter of moments. It was like watching dominos fall. It was
the Systemroot System32 trojan. And I have Nortons, it didn't pick up a
whiff of it.

Oh, OK, then I stand corrected. Yeah, Norton wouldn't be my first choice (or second, or third...). Sorry to hear of your viral misfortune. Hope you recover(ed) without too much damage.

Good luck with getting one of the Crafty programs running. It's really a decent engine. (btw, are you going to use it more for analysis or playing against?)

Originally posted by Mad Rook
Hi again, choux,

I saw a thread in the ChessPad forum that said you have to install the engine folders outside of the Program Files folder for the newer OS's. However, I tried this - Still no luck. (The author said he'd fix the problem in a future version.)

Now I give up!

My recommendation: If you have a recent OS (Win XP or later, maybe even Vista ...[text shortened]... Wait for the next version.

And, no, these ChessPad problems shouldn't be this hard. 😞

Hi, thanks so much for your help, I really appreciate it. I'm running
Windows 7, 64 bit. Even the guy from the Chesspad/Crafty website
forum tried to help, sending them in a zipped file, which ostensibliy
would download and just run. For some reason that didn't work either.
Chesspad worked for me, rather the pieces moved - but is one meant
to play both Black and White?

I also saw that thread about making separate folders outside of the
Program Files. No luck for me either.

No, I won't be doing this again, at least for awhile. I'm still a
little out of sorts about losing my address book, photos, etc. etcl,
(not to mention days, nights and $!) plus the version of FF
I was using, they couldn't restore. yadda yadda 😛

Originally posted by choux
Hi, thanks so much for your help, I really appreciate it. I'm running
Windows 7, 64 bit. Even the guy from the Chesspad/Crafty website
forum tried to help, sending them in a zipped file, which ostensibliy
would download and just run. For some reason that didn't work either.
Chesspad worked for me, rather the pieces moved - but is one meant
to play both Bl ...[text shortened]... , nights and $!) plus the version of FF
I was using, they couldn't restore. yadda yadda 😛

"Chesspad worked for me, rather the pieces moved - but is one meant
to play both Black and White?"

Nope. If working properly, the Crafty engine will play one side. (Or you can just have it analyze a position if you want.)


The fact that you have to place the engine files outside of the Program Files folder (not a desirable setup) tells me that ChessPad2 still has some issues with Windows 7. Arena doesn't suffer from this problem; I'm constantly adding engine files inside the Arena Program Files folder - No problems whatsoever.

Perhaps I coul catch up with you when my computer is back to nornal, which unfortunately it's not. Thanks a lot.