Installation guide is missing unpack GOG .exe file on macOS

[Sajjon]

Hello! I'm a huge HoMM fan and I'm a coder, on macOS Big Sur.

I'm looking into starting the game, make runs successfully and when I start the app I see the very much expected error regarding missing data files.

I just bought the H2 Gold Edition on GOG, which offers only .exe files to download. In fact it offers two .exe files: _setup_heroes_of_might_and_magic_2_gold1.01(2.1)(33438).exe and _setup_homm2_gold_win2.0.0.7.exe GOG also offers downloading of sound files.

The installation guide fails to mention how to extract the necessary game files though. How can I do that?

I really do hope there is a way for me to extract the game files from the .exe files..? I also have a Windows and an Ubuntu machine... must I extract the game files from my Windows machine?

[oleg-derevenetz]

Hi @Sajjon

I also have a Windows and an Ubuntu machine... must I extract the game files from my Windows machine?

Yes, you can run the downloaded installer on your Windows machine and copy the DATA, MAPS, MUSIC and SOUND directories (which will be created by the installer in the destination folder) to the ~/.fheroes2 directory on your Mac. Currently guide recommends to copy all files, and this will work as well, but there is really no need to copy executables, libraries and auxiliary files, these four directories listed above should be enough.

[Sajjon]

@oleg-derevenetz thx! I realized my Windows machine is packed away in a box... is there any known macOS tool to extract the files from the exe file?

[oleg-derevenetz]

Hi @Sajjon You can try to run the installer using WINE, it should be available via MacPorts or Homebrew. You just need to run the installer, there is no need to run original game, I think that WINE is able to deal with it.

[Sajjon]

@oleg-derevenetz right, I saw Devilution referring to using Wine in their guide, I might create a Pull Request if I'm successful.

Would be nice to have this as part of installation guide, especially since GOG is listed as recommended source for game files.

If PRs are welcome that is? ;)

[oleg-derevenetz]

@Sajjon yes, of course.

[jdm]

I used PortingKit to install the GoG version then copied the files from the installed location.

[Sajjon]

I can confirm that wine-crossover worked to extract the game files. Running on Intel mac with Big Sur.

wine32 does no longer work in macOS since Catalina and wine64 didn’t work because… I don’t know really… but installing the wine-crossover via brew was simple enough, just had to uninstall wine stable (wine64) first.

N.B. the command was wine and not wine64 followed by setup.homm2.exe or whatever the name was 😊

[Sajjon]

Might fix PR later, closing this issue now.