ICT4Life and GameMaker Licensing

[mrforgetful]

Just thought I should point this out, and noone seems to have noticed in our LEA...

 

We use ICT4Life for Year 7 and soon to be Year 8 too.

 

Some of ICT4Life requires a program called GameMaker.

 

The ICT4Life System Requirements and GameMaker website state this is free. Even delving into the EULA provides no clue otherwise.

 

But, if you look on the Help section of the GameMaker website (yoyogames) the top entry states to email them if you use GameMaker on a school network.

 

After doing so, I have been informed it will cost £300.00 for 60 concurrent licenses.

 

I advise you look into it as God knows how many schools will have missed this, seen as the publishers of ICT4Life seem to have missed it too.

[lickydog]

The Paid for version is only if you want to use the Pro release in school (and this is the discount price).

 

You are still free to use the LITE version for no cost as per the terms of the Lite licence (irrespective of whether you are a personal or school user). The only caveat is that there is a prompt on launching to suggest that you upgrade. I don't think this can be suppressed.

 

They have got an MSI available for the Lite version for rolling out across a domain, but at the moment you have to request this - they are going to add this as a download to an educational section of the site at some point.

 

"Please send me the GameMaker Lite 7 MSI installer"...

 

Or contact Longman who publish the ICT4Life software directly - we should be able to smooth things through

[burgemaster]

Did you have any success getting this MSI ?

we are in the same boat...

[actech]

Apparently there are some issues using GameMaker 7 on a domain network too. I use v6 and was told by a colleague that just installed v7 that he had some troubles but there are threads on the GameMaker Forums that tell you how to resolve the problem. Not sure if it will apply to you but worth the heads up.

[lickydog]

I use v6

 

If you have V6 already installed, then you might try some replacement files:

ftp://ftp.pearsoned-ema.com/Public/YoYo/ICT4L_1_0_GM6.zip

 

It's not an 'official' support patch but effectively it gives you a server-deployable installer with .gmk files replaced with .gm6 - it was created specifically for a CC3 deployment... so make sure you are comfortable with what it is doing.

 

The GM7 msi can be found here:

ftp://ftp.pearsoned-ema.com/Public/YoYo/GameMaker7.msi

[mortstar]

Any chance you could have a look into this:-

 

1 - Use a database rather than a plethora of xml files with plain-text passwords in them, also this will mean teacher accounts can be used across all ActiveBooks rather than having to set them up individually and change them individually for every single copy we have.

 

2 - Use UNC paths - what is the point in mapping a drive if I'm just going to have to hide it again? Also - forcing me to do the work to hide a mapped drive rather than follow conventions is annoying. This is why we use UNCs.

 

3 - Why does tabbing between fields sometimes work and others not? This is a normal software convention, I've never seen anything that has managed to break this functionality before now.

 

That is it for now...thanks.

Edited October 10, 2008 by mortstar

[lickydog]

Use a database rather than a plethora of xml files

I have passed this back to the development team, but to the best of my knowledge this was done to support the broadest possible range of deployment options/technologies without relying on third-party tools and systems.

 

Use UNC paths - what is the point in mapping a drive if I'm just going to have to hide it again? Also - forcing me to do the work to hide a mapped drive rather than follow conventions is annoying. This is why we use UNCs.

This is to address an introduced issue with Flash-based content. For security reasons, Microsoft and Adobe removed support for UNC paths with locally served Flash content. Prior to this change, our preferred option was indeed to specify UNC.

 

Why does tabbing between fields sometimes work and others not?

The flash-based content cannot self-set focus - the interface has an omission (click here to continue) for example - again, this is a security 'feature' introduced by Adobe and Microsoft. Once focus has been set during a session it tends to be persistent. Again, I have passed this on to the development teams.

 

I know this doesn't address the issues for you, but it may go some way to understanding the why...

[mortstar]

The responses given by 'lickydog' are quite intriguing -

 

I have passed this back to the development team, but to the best of my knowledge this was done to support the broadest possible range of deployment options/technologies without relying on third-party tools and systems.

 

This software can only be installed on a Microsoft system and...

 

This is to address an introduced issue with Flash-based content. For security reasons, Microsoft and Adobe removed support for UNC paths with locally served Flash content. Prior to this change, our preferred option was indeed to specify UNC.

The flash-based content cannot self-set focus - the interface has an omission (click here to continue) for example - again, this is a security 'feature' introduced by Adobe and Microsoft.

 

...relies quite heavily on Adobe Flash - although this seems to provide a clunky user interface that doesn't work intuitively. Using Microsoft and Adobe Flash surely would be "relying on third-party tools and systems".

 

Another 'feature-request' - why have pupils to remember yet another username and password - how about some LDAP compatibility.

[dtakias]

Apparently there are some issues using GameMaker 7 on a domain network too. I use v6 and was told by a colleague that just installed v7 that he had some troubles but there are threads on the GameMaker Forums that tell you how to resolve the problem. Not sure if it will apply to you but worth the heads up.

 

Anyone knows where those threads are? I've been trying to find them for a while! Also tried via google but not much information comes up.

I've been trying to get it running under domain environment but comes up with errors. Also the link for the msi doesn't work, but have requested it from them.

[DrPerceptron]

What errors are you guys getting?

 

We rolled it out by repacking the EXE into MSI using WinInstall LE (or whatever it is called) and the only issue we had was a softwrap problem.

 

If that's the issue, removing the Softwrap folder from c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents fixed it for us.

[dtakias]

What errors are you guys getting?

 

We rolled it out by repacking the EXE into MSI using WinInstall LE (or whatever it is called) and the only issue we had was a softwrap problem.

 

If that's the issue, removing the Softwrap folder from c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents fixed it for us.

 

I used the same program to make the MSI. All working under local admin/limited user but not under domain account.

 

I've tried removing the Softwrap folder from the MSI but it's still the same.

 

Now when comes to the errors I'm getting 3 error windows one after the other.

The messages are:

 

1. error #5 : you tried to run this software twice, or you dont have the full permissions. in this case contact your administrator

 

2. Softwrap file error 4

 

3. Error : Inconsistent files

 

When I give the "Game Maker 7" folder under Program Files full permissions for "domain users" then it works fine under a domain account...But I would prefer not to do that. Any suggestions?

[DrPerceptron]

You have to remove the folder from all the PC's after it's been deployed... Or at least I did.

[dtakias]

Did you remove it manually ? Is there an automated way to do this via GPO?

[DrPerceptron]

@echo .
@echo STAGE6: Game Maker Hax

c:
cd \
cd docum*
cd All*
cd Documents

del softwrap\yoyogamesgm70final\game_maker.sw2
del global.sw2
rmdir softwrap\yoyogamesgm70final
rmdir softwrap

 

That's how I did it, it's a segment of a default computer startup script we use here - I'm far too lazy to convert it into a vbs script though

[dtakias]

That's cool, will give it a go, thank you!

[dtakias]

That script worked really well, thank you.

 

Also if you remove those files from the original MSI before you compress it and then deploy it, it doesnt complain and starts properly with no errors.

[DrPerceptron]

Nice to know

 

Took several weeks of constant badgering by IT staff to get me to really dig out and work out why it errored including some help from google.

[p858snake]

@echo .
@echo STAGE6: Game Maker Hax

c:
cd \
cd docum*
cd All*
cd Documents

del softwrap\yoyogamesgm70final\game_maker.sw2
del global.sw2
rmdir softwrap\yoyogamesgm70final
rmdir softwrap

 

That's how I did it, it's a segment of a default computer startup script we use here - I'm far too lazy to convert it into a vbs script though

 

couldn't you collapse the folder deleting down to "rmdir softwrap /s /q"

[DrPerceptron]

Quite probably, I don't do file/folder deleting in batch scripts that often, so I just stuck with what I knew.

 

The boot script I have is extremely messy now too, so I'll keep it in mind when I go tidy it up/convert to vbs

[notalot]

pm me with your email and ill send you what we used to install game maker, it needed read write and execute access but that all and it needs to create a folder creating, the bat that is in the zip will install and make the changes to the permissions for you.

[goodhead]

can someone please post the msi for game maker lite.

Original or re packaged msi.

 

Thanks

[lickydog]

Also the link for the msi doesn't work, but have requested it from them.

 

http://centraal.uk.knowledgebox.com/kbase/files/CDROM/CC3/Game%20Maker%207.msi - it's v.7 lite...