Quick And Easy Software

I’ve now uploaded the source code to all the programs released this week. I offer no guarantees on its quality, some of it is based on 5 year old code from when I was learning programming and a lot of it is ongoing development code, peppered with todo’s. Much of it shows a disregard for coding conventions and I haven’t yet found the time to refactor and clean it up. In short, your mileage may vary.

Download it here.

Quick and Easy week is now over, many thanks to those who’ve offered words of encouragement. Should you want to show your appreciation and support my work, you can do so via a paypal donation. The ugly paypal button on the right of the page will let you do this. I hope that people find the tools useful; as always people can contact me via the forums or my contact page if they have any problems or suggestions.

Quick and Easy week comes to a close with the USB Disk Ejector.

This was originally a program that I wrote for my own use and released just to see if anyone found it useful. Apparently people did and it was surprisingly popular.

In response to user requests I’ve now beefed it up significantly. This new version has been completely re-written and has many new features. It now works on Vista, can run as a command line application and can eject drives from the command line based on drive letter, drive name or partial drive name.

The new command line options make it especially suitable for use with a flash/pen drive, especially if you use a menu such as PStart or the Portable Apps launcher. Eg. I have PStart setup to run the program with the command line option “/EJECTTHIS’. When I run it, the program loads silently, ejects the pen drive and exits. This works regardless of the drive letter that Windows assigns the drive. I strongly recommended that you check out the readme for more information on the new command line options and how they can be used.

New in version 1.1:

• Now works on Windows Vista. It’s only been tested on XP and Vista but should work with earlier versions of Windows too.
• Changed to ’silent ejection’ by default. There are now no messages shown when a device is successfully ejected, messages are only shown when there is an error and the eject fails.
• The keyboard can now be used to eject drives (press enter).
• Completely reworked the command line options, the old ones were removed and new ones added. See the rest of the readme for more information on these.
• Drives can now be ejected entirely from the command line. You can specify a drive letter, drive name, or partial drive name.
• Mobile mode has been removed, its now automatic. The program will restart itself in mobile mode when appropriate.
• Completely rewrote the drive scanning code. USB devices that dont identify themselves as removable disks can now be managed by the program.
• Uses Vista fonts when running under Vista.

Download it here.

Current Version: 1.1.2 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme] [Source]

This is the latest stable version, if you want to try the beta version with many more features, click here.

A program that allows you to quickly remove USB devices in Windows. It was originally designed to remove only USB pen drives but will now eject any USB device. It can be run as a non-visual command line program or a normal gui program. Its very useful if you have a USB flash/pen drive, especially if you use a menu such as PStart or the Portable Apps launcher.

The command line options are very flexible, they can be used to:

• Eject the drive that the program is running from.
• Eject a drive by specifying a drive letter.
• Eject a drive by specifying a drive name.
• Eject a drive by specifying a partial drive name.

When run as a ‘normal’ GUI program the tools enables USB devices to be quickly ejected through a mouse click or keyboard press. It’s especially useful when dealing with multiple USB devices and for Vista users who don’t want the ‘now safe to remove this device’ dialog box to appear.

The program was designed for and has been tested on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It does not work on Windows 98 (this may change in a future release).

Current Version: 1.0 [Download Latest] [Source]

A replacement installer (setup program) for Escape From Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows.

This installer works on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows and has been tested on Windows XP and Vista. It should work fine with all Windows versions though.

It performs a full install of the game and comes with my Escape From Monkey Island Launcher - which adds extra features beyond those in the game’s original launcher.

Day 6 brings the last of the launcher and setup programs.

Escape From Monkey Island Launcher has been updated to version 1.5. The resolution patch has been reworked to make it much faster, the 6 different language versions of EMI are now better supported and Vista/64 bit Windows support has been added. The full list of changes can be seen below:

New in version 1.5:

• Resolution patch reworked: It’s now much faster. On most systems it will only take 1 or 2 seconds to apply - compared to 30 seconds in previous versions.
• Added support for the 6 different language versions of EMI: The launcher will now download and install the appropriate patch when prompted. Previously only the English patch was supported.
• Added features from the original Lucasarts launcher. Added buttons to switch between Direct3D/OpenGL and 16 bit/32 bit colour. The original launcher now wont run on some systems so it was necessary to include these features.
• Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
• Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256.
• Fixed a small memory leak.
• Now uses the excellent EMI icon created by Thanius.
• 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
• Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.

Download it here.

Escape From Monkey Island Setup is a new tool. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for Escape From Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Escape From Monkey Island Launcher.

Download it here.

Current Version: 1.5 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme] [Source]

An improved version of the launcher program that LucasArts shipped with Escape From Monkey Island, it has a number of features not present in the original launcher:

• Can run EMI in windowed mode.
• Can make EMI run in a higher resolution
• Can automatically download and install the V1.1 update patch for all language versions of EMI.
• Supports all recent versions of Windows (XP, XP64, XPMCE, Vista, Vista64). Windows 98, ME and 2000 are not officially supported but should work correctly.

Day 5 features two tools - one updated and one new.

The Curse of Monkey Island Launcher has been updated. Its had a slight redesign to make it easier to use, has full Vista compatibility and now supports 64 bit versions of Windows. The full list of changes can be seen below.

New in version 2.5

• Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
• Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256 and if running on Vista the launcher now uses vista fonts.
• Fixed a small memory leak.
• Now uses the excellent CMI icon created by Thanius.
• 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
• Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.
• The cutscene fix feature has been removed: Newer versions of DirectX and newer versions of Windows mean that the fast cutscene bug no longer occurs.

Download it here.

Curse of Monkey Island Setup is the new tool. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for the Curse of Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Curse of Monkey Island Launcher.

Download it here.

Current Version: 1.0 [Download Latest] [Source]

A replacement installer (setup program) for the Curse of Monkey Island. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows.

This installer works on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows and has been tested on Windows XP and Vista. It should work fine with all Windows versions though.

It performs a full install of the game, meaning that the cd’s are not needed to play and comes with my Curse of Monkey Island Launcher - which adds extra features beyond those in the game’s original launcher.

Current Version: 2.5 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme] [Source]

An improved version of the launcher program that LucasArts shipped with The Curse of Monkey Island, it has a number of features not present in the original launcher:

• Can run CMI from hard drive (play without the cd`s) and can automatically copy the required files to the hard drive.
• Can run CMI in windowed mode
• Can enable CMI’s debug mode. See the readme for more information on this.
• Supports all recent versions of Windows (XP, XP64, XP MCE, Vista, Vista64). Windows 98, ME and 2000 are not officially supported but should work correctly.
• Loads one of 6 random images as the main launcher image - for added eye candy.

Thursday’s tool is the Psychonauts Saved Game Editor.

There’s been some minor cosmetic changes, Vista compatibility has been tweaked and 25 new common tasks have been added. These allow you to change the ammount of ammo you have, give yourself items such as the cobweb duster, enable/disable Raz’s powers and much more. Many thanks to Bosam and Tobi Lukefisher for sending me these new tasks.

Download it here.

Current Version: 1.1 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme]

A program to edit Psychonauts saved games (PC version only).

Some of the features of Psychonauts Saved Game Editor :

• Simple to use: a common tasks menu allows you to quickly change popular settings such as the number of lives.
• Allows you to change the current level - you can jump to any level on the game.
• Allows you to modify variables contained within the saved games such as the rank and number of figment points.
• Allows you to change the model/mesh of an inventory item, unlock memory vaults and much more.