I've made a portable USB version of SC to play at school. It works perfectly, but it requires either having the CD or INSTALL.exe (from the CD) in order to run. My flash drive is large enough to contain it, but I plan on creating a tutorial showing how to create your own on a 512mb flash drive. INSTALL.exe is 578mb, and I don't want to create a tutorial only for people with a 1gb or more flash drive.
So, I want to compress it to atleast 430mb, because the rest of the files will be 75mb, making it all about 505mb.
Could I some how compress the WAV's and SMK videos but still not have to cut them out completely? I plan to cut out some of the maps not necessary for the campaign (or vis-versa, depending on if they want multiplayer or campiagn), but it defiantly won't cut it down enough.

So you're asking the modding community here to tell you how to compress intall.exe so that you can play SC between classes?
You're better off in the Tech forums.
Also, it's healthier for your grades if you play SC after you've finished school stuff.

Compress it to another format that's smaller.

Well, SC is picky with formats.
For example it hates MP3's and massacres PNG's.

Trust me, this is BCT (Business Computer Technology). As in, our work plan is; teacher gives us a essay on paper, then we type it. Half the kids in the class have never typed on a computer while the others are trying to bring up their GPA.
Also, I figured since mods depend so much on MPQs, this would be a good place to start.
... and I didn't know there was a tech forum.

Eh, grades are irrelavant here anyway.

[backontopic]

Why don't you just get some of those ISOs that a really tiny to run the cd image from it?

Because those ISO's are basically hacked versions of the originals that have every thing cut out except the necessary files need to get to program to run. That wouldn't work because SC actually needs the files packed inside INSTALL.exe, and a mini Image wouldn't have those.

An ISO contains a CD's image, i.e. everything on the CD. Nothing is cut out.

export the really big files such as music files. alter them and then import them back into the mpq. Axe ALL of the campaign obviously. This is a huge part of install.exe.. . Export and alter or remove all of the unnecessary .smks. If you need the "installer" for your comp at school then you may also have to alter some of the files in the setupdat folder as well to reflect these missing files.

An iso of install.exe can be anything you want it to be btw. My iso for instance is the oppostite, it has both the Standard install.exe and Broodwar install.exe files on it. I occasionally like to play the Vanilla campaign and don't feel like changing or remounting disks. ... anyways good luck.. and have fun playing Starcraft at SKOOLZ

Back in 1998, I remember there were lots of ppl who needed smaller starcraft installations. Back then a lot of computers had very very small hard drives... lol.. now you're talking about putting it on a flash drive.

Most people have bigger flash drives than 512 lol .. I've got a 60 gb one (Portable HD that fits in palm of my hand)

You could delete StarDat.exe/BrooDat.exe from it, assuming it is already installed. There are many other things are not used after installing, but I do not feel like completely recompiling install.exe just to run SC.

I normally Hate everybody (I'm Mrih8U after all), So I wouldn't normally justify this with an answer, but for those of us who wish to make a No-Frills yet fully functional Starcraft.mpq and Broodwar.mpq, I've listed all the files required below (at least I think).
Using Winmpq it will use the latest form of MPQ compression which means the files would be smaller compressed in this way, than the original install.exe files. Since these lists are so huge, I recommend, turning off any MPQ file lists you have and making separate ones for these so you don't need to search for each file individually.


PS: I removed all the list, since everything couldn't be displayed, so I put them in 2 lists for everybody, arn't I full of hate?
PPS: one of the lists was incomplete, I had to change the fix it.

Attachments:

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2008, 1:46 pm by Mrih8u.

If you want a minimal mpq with nothing but what is needed to run, these are what you want:



Note that this is for all versions. Some of these files are already included in newer Patch_rt.mpq files. Of course, it doesn't hurt to include them anyway.

This list includes some files from both the Starcraft and Brood War CDs. The only ones not in common may be rez\gluCmpgn.bin and rez\gluExpCmpgn.bin

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 19 2008, 8:19 pm by ShadowFlare.

And you may download said MPQ here:

http://www.speedshare.org/SHeJIXJIYa

Source: http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?currentpage=11&topic_id=65211

EDIT: Its only 65kb.

I think he wanted a condensed starcraft that not only worked on computers that already had starcraft installed but could also install starcraft as well. Meaning altered setupdat files + the minimum/altered files that would go with an altered setup. Probably something like 300mb or so would seem fairly easily attainable with a bit of work. The 450mb cap that you're shooting for should be easy to accomplish tho

.. but those mini-iso's that have been posted at TL are sweet.

Actually I think what he wanted was a working version of starcraft that could be switched from computer (saved games and all), just with a USB flash drive.

ohh ... that makes sense now. So I guess copy your starcraft directory and axe all the things from install.exe that aren't needed i.e. the setupfiles the .mpq's campaigns etc. A 400mb SCraft directory would still seem quite possible since install.exe can be reduced drastically as those mini-iso's show. ...But don't flash drives get jacked up if they are continually accessed/ran programs from?

Not at all, especially not when it comes to SC.

I'm pretty sure they do, but regular defrags fix any or all problems associated with that. And since the average flash drives are smaller and faster than hard drives defragging doesn't even take much time at all.