Anet.inf - Anet Game Information File Format

Contents

• Introduction
• [Activenet]
• [Version Info]
• [Product Info]
• Registry
• Example
• Notes
• Recent Usage History

The file is divided into three sections: [Activenet], [Version Info], and [Product Info].

Some of these sections contain numbers or codes assigned by a central authority. In these cases, the authority to contact to get a new code is clearly identified.

[Activenet]

It contains the following fields:

• Version is a two-part build identifier; it consists of a the major build number followed by a period and then the minor build number. Both numbers must be integers in the range 0 to 255.

  These version numbers can be compared between any two games which have the same Sessiontype. When comparing version numbers, the major number is compared first. If that is the same, the minor number is compared.

  When Production changes a product and sends it to QA for testing, to outside beta testers, or anywhere outside their immediate control, they must increment the version number. Once a product has been sent outside the Production area, the Version number it carried should never be reused (except by localizations that only add localized files without modifying any code files).

• Sessiontype is a number that identifies both the product and the "compatibility group" of the product. If you come out with ten versions of a game that can all play against each other on the network, they all get the same sessiontype. A table giving sessiontype, URL for the related game, and game name is at http://updater.activision.com/updater/etc/types.txt. See below for how to get a new sessionType assigned for your game.

• Language is a number indicating what language-specific patch should be downloaded if a patch is needed. Choices are:
  • 1 = English
  • 2 = German
  • 4 = French
  • 8 = Spanish
  • 16 = Italian
  • 32 = Portuguese
  • 64 = Japanese
  See below for how to get a new language code assigned, if you're localizing to a language not in that list.

  Note: this field should not be used to indicate whether a product has been censored to meet a particular country's violence requirements.

  Note: QA currently requires a single patch .exe to patch all languages, so this feature has not yet been useful. When we are able to structure our patches to meet QA's needs, yet not be bloated with unused languages, this feature may become useful. In anticipation that a future patch will do this, you should be careful to put the right language code in this field of anet.inf.

  Two-character ISO standard language codes are also available, and a mapping between them and the above numerical codes has been defined. Ask Dan Kegel for info if you want to use these.

• Platform is a number indicating what platform-specific patch should be downloaded if a patch is needed. A new code will need to be allocated for each platform that requires a different downloaded patch. Choices are presently limited:
  • 1 = Win95
  • 2 = Win95/Pentium III Only (First used by Heavy Gear 2)
  Other values might be used for, e.g. large asset install options, unlockable products, Macintosh products, Linux products, or product versions which are highly specific to a particular graphics card. If you're doing anything like that, see below for how to get a new platform code assigned. Don't make up new platform codes without getting them assigned first!

• Name is the name of the game, for displaying to the user in a menu of all installed games.

• Run is the executable file to run when launching from a third party shell. It is a path relative to the anet.inf file. This should not contain spaces (under Win95, you can use the 8.3 alias if the real filename contains spaces or punctuation). Using this line without 'Cmdline' is equivalent to launching the game the way the user would launch it through windows.

• Cmdline is the commandline to pass to the executable when launching from a third party shell.

Assigned Numbers Authority

[Version Info]

This contains the following fields:

• Version is the external, or displayed, version of the product, as determined by marketing. It is referred to by register.exe, the CS screen, and patch programs. It can be an arbitrary unquoted string, e.g. Version=1.1a Beta
• QA is a value assigned by QA. It was originally intended to identify the product uniquely among all of its release forms. This has to some extent been replaced by the [Activenet] section's Version field.

[Product Info]

It contains the following fields:

• ProductID is a unique id string to identify the product. In the past, it was a function of cross-production to determine this string. Currently, it is the responsibility of the production team to invent a string and communicate it to Bob Jensen or David Vonderhaar, who are in charge of handling the registration information sent to our servers.
• ProductName used to be a string for display purposes. For versions of register.exe after 23 Nov 1998, this field is unnecessary. E-Reg looks to Name in the ActiveNet block instead.
• RegNum is a ten-digit phone number used for dialup connections. For versions of register.exe after 23 Nov 1998, this field is unnecessary, as dialup is no longer supported. This value of this field has remained constant for a long while now. To contrast, information sent via webreg is posted to our servers at the url: http://cgi.activision.com/cgi/webreg/webreg. This URL string is not in the anet.inf. It is hardcoded into register.exe. You can browse to this URL, but you won't see anything interesting there. It's only there to receive posted information, not send.
• WebReg was the full URL used when submitting registration information via http to the game vendor.

Game Browser Registry Usage

If we wanted to allow multiple versions of a game to be installed on the same machine, this key should have a different name for each sessionType/language/platform combination. The suggested registry key in that case would be SessionType.Platform.Language, e.g. 1101.1.2 for Heavy Gear version 1.0 / Win95 / German, and patches should rename this registry key if they change the sessionType. That is, the Heavy Gear 1.1 -> 1.2 patch should change the registry key from 1101.1.2 to 1102.1.2, because Heavy Gear 1.2's SessionType is 1102.

If we don't want to allow multiple versions of a game to be installed, this key should be the unvarying unique key for the product. For example, this key could use the same name as the subkey created under the Uninstall key (described below).

Uninstaller / Splash Screen Registry Usage

Note that this key identifier is yet another identifier for the product. It has the following requirements: it cannot change from version to version of the product, since it is hardcoded in the CD-ROM.

The values contained in this key are:

• UninstallString This is required by Win95. It is the command line to be executed to uninstall the product, and is of the form 'short-path-to-uninstall.exe long-path-of-uninstall-logfile-for-product', and can also be used to determine the installed directory of the product, since the uninstall logfile is always placed in TARGETDIR:/uninstall/

• EXE This is the full path to the product's main executable.

  This is used by the CD-ROM splash screen to decide whether the product is installed. If the file exists, the product is installed. However, the installer uses information hardcoded into the CD-ROM to decide which files to run, and how to run them, not this registry value.

• DisplayName This is required by Win95. It is how the product is displayed in Add/Remove Programs in the control panel. The installer sets this to be the same string added to the line 'Name' in block 'ActiveNet'.

Other than these two registry keys, nothing else should be added by installers and patching programs, if avoidable, as it is wise not to rely on the registry to store any valuable information other than the location of the installed product.

Example

[ActiveNet]
Cmdline=
Name=Heavy Gear
Run=heavyg~1.exe
SessionType=1103
Platform=1
Language=2
Version=2.44

[Version Info]
Version=1.3
QA=1179

[Product Info]
ProductID=HGEARW95
ProductName=Heavy Gear
RegNum=8005079063

[ActiveNet]
Cmdline=
Run=heavyg~1.exe
SessionType=1103
Version=2.44

[Version Info]
Version=1.3
QA=1179

[Product Info]
ProductID=HGEARW95
ProductName=Heavy Gear
RegNum=8005079063

[ActiveNet]
Name=X
Platform=X
Language=X

• 'Name' is localized text, which is also written to the Uninstall key in the registry.
• 'Platform' may depend on install choices made by the user.
• 'Language' is a language dependent number, as described earlier.

There are many different versions of the human-readable product name.

There are many different versions of a unique key identifying the product. Some must change from version to version; some must remain the same.

The notion of version number is under debate. Some people want it to be a floating-point number; others want it to be two integers separate by a period. This is not a trivial distinction, as it radically changes how one compares version numbers.

Ben Siron