Fixing AdvanceText Errors

[Thoriére]

Introduction

Hello, everyone. You may know me from a few posts around the forums, or from chatting with me on either of my accounts (this one, or the old one, to elaborate). I've been interested in ROM hacking for almost five years now, and I've been practicing it for about two. But, that's neither here nor there.

One of the staple tools, though not used much by the more "serious" hackers these days, is AdvanceText. It's been around since the beginning for me, and I like to think I know my way around it at least somewhat, no matter how little I use it now.

I was really surprised to find that there were no functional text tutorials about fixing this bug around. I did a few cursory searches on here as well just to confirm that nothing existed already pertaining to this, so I decided to make one myself! Just in case this isn't obvious, this will be a very text-heavy and image-heavy tutorial, so make sure to be clearly focused and energetic enough when you start this process. I hope it's helpful.

Now, formalities aside, it's time to get down to business.

Navigation

1. Downloading AdvanceText
2. Why AdvanceText Won't Work
3. Fixing AdvanceText

1. Downloading AdvanceText

Spoiler:

I'm not going to link you to the program, so you're just going to need to type it into Google (or any preferred search engine) and download it. Naturally, it's best to have an anti-virus program attached to your browser or some other critical area in your compute; honestly, this is rather basic, but many people don't actually have this setup, so don't feel bad if you're one of those individuals. Avira is a good program, but that's not the point of this tutorial.

After downloading the program and inspecting the folders to make sure the program itself is inside and functional, you'll have to pick one of two options; if the program opens and asks you to load a ROM, proceed to point four (The Basics of AdvanceText). If an error message appears, proceed to point two (Why AdvanceText Wont Work).

2. Why AdvanceText Won't Work

Spoiler:

For those that may not know, A-Text is a text editor, plain and simple. It was created by a ROM hacker named Scizz, and essentially, using it is quite a bit like going into a rough draft of an essay and editing the textual content however you see fit. I had lots of good times with A-Text when I first found out about it, to be quite honest; if you're not looking to become a seasoned hacker, or if you just want to explore the tool, getting it to work is arguably the most important part of the process, regardless of your motivations.

What you'll probably see when you first start the program up is this:

Let's break this down. To put it simply, you're missing a file called "comdlg32.ocx", which is a file needed by A-Text to run. Specifically, it's a file typically bundled with programs, acting as an agent to help the program run with more ease and general quality. Files with this extension are also found within the Windows operating system itself, and can be used to allow administrator of a computer to do certain extra things. Fortunately, it's free online, and it's a safe download to boot (at least, from the sites I tested it on). The only was you could be luckier was if it just came with the program in the first place (and if that's the case, it's probably best if you skip to point four (The basics of AdvanceText).

3. Fixing AdvanceText

Spoiler:

Now, put simply, this is a relatively easy fix. It may not seem that way, because there are so few coherent tutorials out there, but it's phenomenally simple.

Now, that's not to say that it's the easiest thing in the world; it can get a bit tricky at parts, but it's certainly not too difficult. The easiest part of this tutorial was, unfortunately, finding the .ocx file itself.

As illustrated here, I have the file on my desktop alongside my main folders. Now, something important to remember is to avoid putting this file in a folder. That may seem like a strange point, but putting this in a folder can screw things up a bit. Just keep it on the desktop for now.

The next thing you'll want to do is open up your start menu.

Click the "computer" tab, and you'll find yourself in a window that displays all of your memory.

You're going to want to focus on the one disk labeled as (C:). Click that, and then click the folder in it labeled "Windows". Inside of that, enter the folder "System32" (they're all in alphabetical order, so it shouldn't be hard to find). I know I said not to put the .ocx file into any folders, but we're going to break that rule right now. Once you're in there, just click and drag the file from your desktop, and you'll be free to close that window out.

One more thing.

Head into whatever folder you keep AdvanceText in and right-click it. You see that option a few spaces under the bolded "open" option with the shield next to it? It says "run as administrator". Click that.

Again, click "yes".

And it's done!

Closing

I really do hope that this tutorial was helpful, and cleared some odd things up for people. Though I no longer use or encourage the serious use of AdvanceText, it can be quite fun to play around with, and I hope that everyone enjoys the help this brings.

If you have any questions (or compliments), feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks!

 

[GUMI 02]

Nice Tutorial, I actually found a video on youtube about 4 months ago!

 

[Thoriére]

Nice Tutorial, I actually found a video on youtube about 4 months ago!

That's good! For some reason I couldn't find any dirt on it but that may have been because I wrote this when I was supposed to be asleep. I hope it was helpful for you? I'm only going to use A-Text for one thing anyway, but I figured this would be good to write out.

 

[GUMI 02]

That's good! For some reason I couldn't find any dirt on it but that may have been because I wrote this when I was supposed to be asleep. I hope it was helpful for you? I'm only going to use A-Text for one thing anyway, but I figured this would be good to write out.

I only used it for the Intro Because im lazy

 

[Thoriére]

I only used it for the Intro Because im lazy

Yeah, like... Who wants to dig through hex when a better tool exists? I wiped all of the scripts from the ROM anyway, so there's nothing else to really edit in the first place.

 

[mkarthick98]

Nice simple tutorial man. Its helpful that you bothered to write this in the first place.

 

[Thoriére]

Nice simple tutorial man. Its helpful that you bothered to write this in the first place.

Hey, it's no problem. I know a lot of people have had this issue in the past.

 

[Lunos]

Welp.. the title is a bit wrong.
I mean, it says "errors" and this only fix 1 simple error, while, for example, you didn't explained how to fix another errors like the "The text pointer wasn't found!" one.. meh.