
Support FAQ \| Ver8 patches

Version 8 Support

Last updated: August 6, 2002

This page answers questions that are specific to the user interface and features of version 8. For answers to general questions about the game, our player ratings, and company policies, see FAQ -- General.

Patches and other updates

In August, 2002, we released an update to one of the data files that comprise the version 8 play-by-play library. This was necessary to fix a bug that was introduced in the version 8e patch. You can download the corrected version of this file. Make sure you are already running version 8e before installing this file.

If you haven't already done so, you can download the latest version 8 patch that includes other fixes that have been made to the software since it was first released. We will continue to release patches as necessary to correct problems that are reported in the future.

NOTE: The bugs listed below include only those that have NOT been fixed in a patch. Bugs that have been fixed are listed on the patch download pages.

An updated version 8 help file is available for download from this site.

The remaining items on this page are grouped into four categories -- known bugs, trouble-shooting, features, and how-to.

Bugs

Dial up connection when accessing help

Our installation program should have included a file that is needed for viewing help. Most computers already have this file installed, so most customers will not experience this problem. But if your computer tries to dial your internet provider each time you try to access a help page, it means you need to download this file and register it on your computer.

Here's how:

Click here to download the hhactivex.dll file
Copy this file to your c:\windows\system folder
Click on the Start button
Click on Run...
Enter regsvr32 hhactivex.dll and click OK

Unable to view help file

Some customers who are using Windows95 and who do not have Internet Explorer version 4 or 5 installed are unable to view the help file. We are researching this problem, but we do not have a fix available at this time.

For those of you who cannot access help, we have prepared a plain-text version of the help file. It's about 160 pages long and can be viewed using WordPad (which is part of Windows, so everyone should have it) or any other word processor or text editor that you might be using. It's a self-extracting zip file (just like the season disks we send out), and you can install it using these instructions:

Download the plain-text help file (133K)
Open Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and copy the downloaded file (helptext.exe) to your DMB8 folder
When the file is in your DMB8 folder, double-click on it to cause the actual text file (helptext.txt) to be extracted

After you have done this, you'll have a file called helptext.txt in your DMB8 folder. Anytime you want to view the help file, you can double-click on helptext.txt using Windows Explorer or My Computer. Windows will tell you that it's too large to be viewed using NotePad and will ask you whether you want to view it with WordPad. Click the "Yes" button to open the file so you can read it (or print it) using WordPad.

If you are experiencing this problem, please send email to let us know so that we can keep you up to date as we learn more.

Trouble-shooting

I drafted new rosters, but when I start playing games, I get a message that says "[Player X] not on [team's] roster." What's going on?

When we ship the 2000 Season Disk, the option to use real-life transactions and game-by-game lineups is turned on. When you run a draft, the rosters are no longer in synch with the real-life lineups, so the game complains when it tries to load those lineups.

The solution is to turn off this feature by choosing View > Organizer to display the DMB organizer window. If you're using an Organization, click on the Orgs tab, then double-click on the organization. When the Modify Organization window pops up, click on the Options tab, then change the value of Transactions and lineups to "Do not use transactions or lineups". Then click OK to save these changes and try playing games again. (If your league is not part of an Organization, click on the Leagues tab instead and make the change to your league settings.)

How can I keep a player from getting drafted more than once?

This is discussed in a Help file topic called "Draft Preparation" that you can find by accessing the Help table of contents, then double-clicking on the Organizer book and double-clicking on the Drafts book.

Most Diamond Mind Season Disks contain more than one record for players who were traded during the real-life season. So you'll often see the same player in the free agent pool three or four times -- once for each team he played on (we call these team-specific records), and once for his overall performance (we call these combined records).

It's best to remove the team-specific records and leave only the player's combined record in the database before you begin the draft. The Tools > Delete team-specific records command is an easy way to do this.

Why is DMB is putting my players into the #9 slot when I try to choose a starting lineup?

Starting lineup selection is done in two phases. First, you choose both starting pitchers and then click the OK button to lock in those selections. DMB needs to have the starting pitchers locked in before advancing to the lineup selection phase because you may ask the computer manager to generate a lineup for one or both teams, and the computer manager needs to know which pitcher it is facing. During this phase, all players are inserting into the #9 slot (non-DH league) or the P slot (DH league) in the lineup.

After you click OK, DMB redisplays the lineup selection window with a different set of popup menus that contain commands for entering the rest of your starting lineups. At this point, you can move the pitcher from the #9 slot to another batting order position and/or complete the rest of your lineup.

When I try to create or install a league database, I get a message that says "A required database file (dmbera.dat) is missing from the transfer file". What does this mean?

This results from an improvement we made in the version 8B patch (allowing commissioners more flexibility in distributing boxscores while reducing the size of the transfer files). It means that the league database was exported using version 8B or later and you are using version 8 or 8A. You will be able to install the league database without getting this error message after you install the latest version 8 patch. (See the top of this page for information on patches.)

Schedules with home team playing more than one game on the same day

We have learned that a few DMB leagues use schedules where a home team is scheduled to play more than one opponent on the same day. When you play league games and have DMB automatically save game accounts (so you can transfer these games to your commissioner later), DMB creates a file name that includes the date, the ID of the home team, and the game number (0 for the only game of the day, 1 for first game of double-header, and so on). If you schedule the same home team more than once the same day without specifying unique game numbers, the game account files won't have unique file names, and information will be lost.

For that reason, it's important that all scheduled games include game numbers whenever a home team plays more than one game in a day. Beginning with our version 8B patch, this rule is enforced, and any time you use the schedule editor and try to save your changes, DMB checks to see if there are any days where a home team has more than one game and the game numbers are missing. If it finds any of these cases, you're not allowed to save the schedule.

Unfortunately, this affects the 2000 season disk, since Cleveland played two different opponents on September 25th and we didn't use game numbers to distinguish them. If you edit the 2000 schedule, perhaps to add post-season games, you won't be allowed to save that schedule without adding game numbers for those two Cleveland games. And if you've already played those games, you won't be allowed to add those game numbers because you cannot edit scheduled games that have already been completed. So you're stuck unless you add the game numbers for those two Cleveland games before playing those games.

We strongly recommend that anyone using the real-life 2000 schedule take a moment to add game numbers for these two games. It will only take a minute, and you'll only need to do this once. Here's how:

- open the Organizer window, click on the Schedules tab, and double-click on the Inter-League schedule to open the schedule editor

- scroll down to the games on September 25, then use the Modify command to change the game number for each of the Cleveland games. Enter a game number of 1 for the game against Chicago and 2 for the game against Minnesota.

- save the schedule

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Injury return date not exported for players put on the disabled list

When you put a player on the disabled list, his injury return date is automatically adjusted to 15 days from the effective date or the original injury return date, whichever is later. In other words, if a member of a league disables a player who is due back in less than fifteen days, his return date is extended to fifteen days. If he was injured for more than fifteen days, his return date is not affected. All of this is working properly in version 8.

However, if you are a manager in a draft league and you place one of your players on the DL, then export your statistics and send them to your league commissioner, the new injury return date is NOT included in the transfer file. We plan to correct this oversight in a future release.

In the meantime, if you participate in a league that uses the stats transfer features, we recommend that you notify your league commissioner of any DL moves you wish to make and have the commissioner make those moves. The correct return dates will then be calculated on the master copy of the league database and included the next time the commissioner exports the league database.

Features

Is there going to be a printed user guide?

We have no plans to create a printed user guide for version 8. Instead we have created an extensive help file that you can access from just about anywhere in the game. We felt this would be a better strategy for three reasons:

there's an awful lot of information -- about 300-400 full-size pages at the moment, with more to come -- so the cost of printing and shipping a user guide would be very high.
we plan to make frequent updates to the help file in the coming year as we learn more about the type of help our customers need most. We'll be able to make those updated help files available as free downloads from our web site.
you can access context-specific help from dozens of places in the product, so you should be able to get advice on what you're working more quickly than if you had to search for it in the user guide

In our opinion, the second reason -- the ability to provide updates -- is the most important. We expect the help file to be at 500-600 pages in a year, and there's no reasonable way to make this new material available to people in the form of a printed manual.

By the way, you can print all or part of the help file if you like.

Is there a way to passively "watch" the play-by-play of a computer vs computer game?

Yes, this option was added to the game in the version 8D patch.

How To

How can I print the help file?

Open the Help file, choose the Contents tab, right-click on a chapter or topic and choose the Print command from the popup menu. You'll need to do this once for each of the ten top-level chapters to get the whole thing on paper.

What's the easiest way to look at a list of free agents?

One way is to open a register report. Start by choosing Report > Standard. When the report selection window appears, click on Batting register in the report type list, then click on Real-life batting register in the list of reports. When the report options dialog pops up, choose Players on a free agent list and click on OK. You can use the same technique to display a list of free agent pitchers.

You can also view a list of free agents from the Draft window. To create a new draft, start by choosing the View > Organizer command. Then click on the Drafts tab, click on the New button, and fill in the draft options form. After the draft has been created, double-click on it in the Organizer window to open the Draft window. Click the Batters and Pitchers tabs in the Draft window to see a list of free agents of each type.

How do I set up to automatically save boxscores for autoplayed games?

We moved the options to save boxscores and scoresheets to the league settings so league commissioners could set them once and know that they'll be in force for all league games. You can modify these settings using View > Organizer to open the Organizer window.

If you're playing an inter-league season, click on the Orgs tab, then double-click on the organization you wish to modify (there's only one), click on the Options tab and change the settings.

If you're playing with a single league that's not part of an organization, click on the Leagues tab and follow the same sequence of steps for the selected league.

How can I install a desktop icon so I can start the game more easily?

Open Windows Explorer or My Computer as a window (not in full-screen mode).
Find the folder you installed DMB into. If you did a standard installation, the folder will be on the C: drive and will be called DMB8.
When you have opened that folder, find the file called baseball (or baseball.exe if you have it set up to show file extensions). Use the right mouse button to drag that file off the window and onto an empty portion of your desktop, then release the mouse button.
Windows pops up a little menu asking what you want to do. Choose Create shortcut here.
After Windows adds the icon to the desktop, you can move or rename it at any time.

How can I use very old season disks with version 8?

Version 8 is designed to convert and use seasons that are in version 5, 6 or 7 format. If you have season disks that are in version 2, 3 or 4 format, you can convert them to version 8 in two steps if you own Diamond Mind Baseball version 5, 6 or 7.

For example, if you currently have version 7 installed on your computer:

Use DMB version 7 to install that old season and let DMB convert the season to version 7 format.
Use Windows Explorer to drag that (just-converted) version 7 folder of the season to the DMB8 folder. You'll be asked if you want to copy, move, cancel, etc. Choose Copy.
Start up DMB version 8. From the File menu, choose "Add reference to existing database...", select the folder you just added under DMB8, double-click on it, and then click on OK.
You'll be asked if you want to convert it to Version 8. Answer "Yes".

If you do not have DMB 5, 6 or 7 installed, consider buying an upgrade to the version 8 edition of those older season disks. We offer season disk upgrades for $5 each plus shipping and handling.

How should I interpret the error rating? The values on the roster (131) and the game window (e16) are different.

On the roster, a rating of 131 means that the player is rated to make errors at a rate of 131% of the league average for his position, or 31% more errors than the average player. On the game window, this shows up as e16 to indicate that he's projected to make 16 errors per 100 full games (900 defensive innings) when he plays games in this era. If you move him to another era, his rating of 131 would translate into a different number of projected errors.

How can I assign free agents to rosters without running a draft?

The easiest way to get free agents onto rosters is to use the Roster / manager profile command on the View menu to open the roster window. Then right-click anywhere on the large rectangle that lists all of the players on the roster. When DMB displays a popup menu of roster commands, choose Sign, then select the player to add to this roster. Continue using the Sign command (changing teams as necessary) until you have added all of the players you want.

I wound up with a tie for a division lead. How do I play that to a conclusion?

You can add a tie-breaker playoff game to the schedule using the following steps:

Use the View > Organizer command to open the organizer window.
Click on the Schedules tab and then double-click on the schedule you're playing to open the schedule editor.
Click on the New button and select Add one game from the popup menu.
Choose the date and the teams, set the game Type to "Playoff", then click OK to add the playoff game to the schedule.

Then return to the scheduled game window and either play or autoplay the game. When your season is over, you can use the Tools > Restart a season command to reset everything, and the restart process will remove this playoff game from the schedule.