Does Your Vista Game Explorer (VGE) Look Like This?
Does your Vista Game Explorer (VGE) look like this?
Some games have BoxArt, proper titles, release dates and more - while others only have the executable’s icon. The combination supported and unsupported games in the VGE looks terrible.
I’ve been working on a program that will allow you edit the entries for non-Windows games so that your VGE can look something like the final result found at the end of this document.
The first time you run VGEE on your computer in a certain user account, you will get this message box:
You may notice that all of the games in the list box below are the ones that are supported by the VGE, and have downloaded their box art from the Internet. Games that have the “Games for Windows” label install box art automatically via the GDK. These games are not supported by VGEE. If you want to edit these games in VGEE, you will need to remove the game from your VGE, and then add it just as you would any other game that’s not supported.
Before you can add any extra box art to your unsupported games, you need to tell VGEE which supported game can be used as the “Game to Overwrite”.
When you add a new game, VGEE creates a copy of this “Game to Overwrite”, and then changes the original version to make it become the new game. VGEE then attempts to add the copied version back into the VGE. VGEE currently needs special permissions to be able to do this, so users who do not have these permissions may find that the overwritten game does not get put back into the VGE.
Now we can load one of the games that is missing box art and start to fix our VGE.
Choose the ‘Load Game Information’ button at the top, then select a game that needs fixing up and choose Edit.
VGEE will check the game and guess if it has been added into the VGE correctly yet or not. If VGEE thinks the game has not been added properly yet, you’ll be asked this:
To help avoid confusion, let’s assume that:
- The “Game to Overwrite” is Need for Speed 3 (NFS 3)
- The game we are trying to load and fix is DiRT
If you click Yes, then VGEE will do the following:
- Delete DiRT from your VGE
- Create a backup of NFS 3
- Overwrite the original version of NFS 3 with the data that VGEE knows about DiRT (usually just the file name of the game).
- Restore the backup of NFS 3 and add it as a new game.
- Load the contents of DiRT for editing.
If you choose No, and VGEE was correct in guessing that the game was not added properly, you will not be able to add any box art for that game.
A game is ‘not added properly’ if you drag it into the VGE and no box art is downloaded. In contrast, a properly added game that isn’t supported is one that was added by filling in the data in VGEE’s main Window and then clicking the ‘Add New Game’ button.
After getting VGEE to fix our game (Colin McRae DiRT), it gets loaded in the main screen. Just fill in the forms, add the box art, and click the ‘Update Game Information’ button up the top.
If you click the ‘Find Box Art’ button, a web page will open that allows you to search for a game and find out the information for it. Another good source to check in Wikipedia.
Check your VGE - that’s one game fixed.
Now repeat the process by loading another game and fixing it up.
Make sure that whenever you use VGEE that your VGE is closed - otherwise changes that you make may not be shown and your VGE could get corrupted - meaning that you would have to start again.
While you have a game fixed, it would be a good idea to export it somewhere for future use if needed. Importing and exporting are only supported in VGEE Beta 2.13 and newer. Older versions could only export a reg file and the box art as two files - and these could only be imported manually on the same computer in the same user account.
You can import a game by double-clicking a VGI file. If the VGI file points to a game filename that doesn’t exist on your PC then you’ll have to fix it in VGEE before opening your VGE (as it checks for games that aren’t on your PC and deletes any items that can’t be found).