Microsoft Train Simulator Forum

I installed MSTS yesterday using CrossOver Games.

Install went without problems, even the changing of cd's went perfectly.

It didn't work straight away though... I got an error 'please remove the debugger and try again'. However, after updating msts to v1.2 it worked perfectly.

Today I set about installing add-ons. I went for the simplest of add-ons: an activity. Problem straightaway. About 95% of the add-on activities found on the net are packaged in an .apk-file. With MSTS comes an unpacking utility called TSunpack to unpack these files. But it doesn't work with CXG. Tried double-cliking the apk-file but CXG gave me error: Failed to open package.

In windows you could also drag the apk-file over the tsunpack.exe, so I thought I'd try that, but it also doesn't work.

Any MSTS-ers using CXG found a way to install activities?

Hi,

Can yo upload the tsunpack.exe file to a public repo like rapidshare or the like,
post the download URL back here so I can grab that file? I may be able to figure out
what it needs...

Cheers!

Hi Don,

Thanx in advance for your effort.

Here's the rapidshare link: http://rapidshare.com/files/408136705/tsunpack.exe

Hi,

Well...that was interesting.....see this snap ;

http://rapidshare.com/files/408178856/tsunpak-exe-output.jpg

Note what it's asking for in the error message...ie; a .tap file,
and yet you report that everything is packed into .apk files...

It makes me wonder if windows renames the files on copy to $temp and
then uses tsunpak.exe on the renamed file...

I suppose the logical test would be rename somefilename.apk to somefilename.tap

Then, run the command manually....(you haven't told us whether you're on Mac or linux).
On linux using CXG installed into my home directory, the command would be such as ;

~/cxgames/bin/wine tsunpak.exe somefilename.tap

...but I've no idea where it will unpack the files. Create a new directory and experiment a
bit...perhaps it is just a matter of unpacking the files and then copying them into place...

Let me know how you get on...

Cheers!

Changing the extension to .tap had no effect I'm affraid.

As for running commads manually, I'm not sure how to do that as this is my first experience with CrossOver.

I'm on a Mac btw. I found a 'Run Command' option in a menu, but didn't get much further. There's a browse button which I used to select the tsunpack.exe file. But it said i needed to a specify a file (indeed asked for a .tap 😊. But I don't now how I can secify a file... I believe I need to type everything manually, but haven't got a clue what to type.

As for where it will unpack files, that shouldn't be a problem (wasn't in windows anyway). The app unpacks the file and puts everything in default folders which are used by the game.

Hmm....windows must setup some file associations to deal with the .apk extension....

You're on the right track though I think...use the 'run command' function for
the bottle, browse to the tsunpack.exe and open it, then in the stringbox specify
one of the addon files (which you may need to rename from .apk to .tap )...ergo,
in the 'run command' stringbox it would have ;

tsunpack.exe /full/path/to/addon.tap

Then try running it....

I suppose there's also the possibility that the .apk files haven't just been renamed,
they've also been compressed as well (with zip or whatever)....how big are these addon
files?

edit:

http://ftp.train-sim.com/faq/msts/activity.htm

Succes !!

Followed the link to trains-sim.com Read that they found a bug in tsunpack. Downloaded their tsunpack_fix app from their file-library. Installed into my MSTS bottle, and bada-bing, bada-boom. Everything works perfectly. Just need to double-click an .apk file and CXG puts everything where it belongs!

So, thanks very much for the help, Don. Actually I feel a bit embarassed that you had to point me toward train-sim.com. I'm actually a member there, so I should've found the solution myself. But in my defence, it's been a couple of years since I stopped train-simming 😊

Good to hear....seeing as we know it works, here's a link to the solution;

http://www.railserve.com/jump/jump.cgi?ID=7970

Cheers!

I got the game installed, but what about add-ons that are mainly manual? I would love to download them and change some stuff but how do I do that? Where are the files for the game kept?