MechWarrior 2: Resource Forum

I borrowed a copy of the DOS/95 Retail for 31CC from a friend and noticed the games they install are exactly the same.
Here's what I have noticed are the same:

-Same game files
-Both Win95 AND DOS included

Now, here are the differences between the two. Softkey gets some pros and cons here.

-Softkey includes the MW2V11 patcher.
-Softkey includes DOS NETMECH as well!
-Softkey has no music! (>:C)

Knowing this, I knew there is only 1 thing the Softkey edition needs to become "complete" - music.
As a first test, I ran the Softkey installed version with the DOS/95 Retail in the drive - it detected the CD, and furthermore, it played music!

And so began my quest for a perfect Mech2 - basically it's another way to attain a MECH2 DOS/WIN95 Netmech Edition with just a Softkey and music.

Here are the steps that I did:
-Saved the Softkey edition to an IMG (No CUE needed, because of lack of music)
-Got music from the DOS/95 Retail version. I recall that the MW2 soundtrack was hosted here - I'll link if I find it.
-I then used a Nero to create a Mixed Mode CD image, and put in the data from the Softkey image. (any image burning program that supports Mixed Mode will do, but there aren't many free ones)
-I then gave Nero the audio data from the saved DOS/95 Retail tracks.
-I noticed that the data was just too big to fit on the CD. To fix this, I deleted uneccesary folders- AOL, and Adobe Reader related, and the DirectX installer (I'm sure we all have better than DirectX 2 by now )
-BURN!!! [Make sure your recordable CD isn't a cheap piece of crap! Mine failed to burn for a while before I tried a different brand] I used TDK brand recordable CDs. The cheapo one that failed was Memorex I believe (They were simple silver on the top and blue on the bottom, so it could just be the case fooling me)
[By the way, the Mixed Mode CD option is in Nero Burning ROM, not Nero Express]

-And voila, you now have a legit copy of MW2 that rivals the power of the DOS/95 Netmech Edition, complete with music.

EDIT: There is one thing I have yet to test - if GBL recognizes this as MW2 or not. As I don't have GBL, this might be hard. But, as long as it recognizes the Softkey version as MW2, then it should be good.

Good job, MG! I know how much MW2 lacks without music

Gee, it's nice to know what I've been missing all these years.

Aw damn it, Mech2 doesn't want to detect the new CD. (Yes, I did a CUE/BIN pair, protected mode, yadda yadda)

That's balls, man.


Does anyone know what MECH2.EXE looks for to determine the CD? If not, I don't see a way to fix this.

I could tell you, but if I did then there would be more no cd images floating around. Sorry

It should be possible to modify the soundtrack though without worrying about that.
I will go do it and report back.

Update:
Yep, adding tracks works as expected as far as getting in the game, but atm my sound is messed up so there is no way to know whether the music worked.
What I did is simply copy all the files but the AOL stuff over in nero in mixed mode.. then took the music off of the mech2 3dfx in lossless wav form and transplanted em over to the new disc.
I used Nero 7. I am pretty sure that the sound works despite my sound being messed up atm because I did the same thing 10 years ago and it worked. I did it on the netmech edition tho and transplanted some mercs tracks.

Also it should be noted that I am using mech2 DOS on XP without dosbox for this test.

Hmm, I'll have to try it in just XP then.

And yes, what you did is basically what I did as well. I wonder what I did differently.


I think, it happened because i may have forgotten to rip the AOL CD image as a protected mode disc before putting the music on it, though I'm not entirely sure.
I guess I could try using only Nero to copy the CD this time.

EDIT: Nope, the DOS version in XP doesn't detect it either
I don't think I can get the game to run either without DOSBOX, because NETMECH spits out an error, something like "The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction." I can press ignore, but then the screen is just blank.

That is odd.. you are talking about the installer though right?
If it is ignore should work.. not sure why it is not on your side.. (btw this is outlined in the FAQ section)

Use mechvm to install it or run it from where you installed it in the dosbox dir.

Sir MMPD Radick wrote:just hit ignore.
XP works fine if you follow the instructions on the FAQ section.

Yes, I did that. As I said before, once I click Ignore, it fullscreens and is just blank forever.

I'm starting to think it's a general issue for fullscreen DOS things for me. The only one that actually worked was the MW2 installer.
Every other game I've run in DOS fullscreen does this.

Furthermore, Alt+Enter deosn't bring the game into a window.

yep sounds like an OS issue alright. strange

Well, anyway, how did you copy it over in Nero? You were using Burning ROM right? Was it as simple as just copying all the files over or did you do something different?

Or did you make an image and edit it? It seems I can't edit the image with Nero, only burn it straight-up.