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Links: Do you know where the game was installed?
Game is instaled in GOG directory, but uses DOS BOX apps on windows 8 too. I'm thinking the game is saved in the drop box config somehow. but after that I am lost. Thank you for the replies.
The files shouldn't, under any circumstances, be in any other directory than '<Gog directory>/Starflight 1 and 2/Starflight 1/STARFLT/PLAY' otherwise the game would not function. Please check there, and take into account they are STARA.COM and STARB.COM, they are DOS executables not proper save game files.

--edit-- I didn't see you edited your original post, please don't do that in a forum after someone replied to you. Any new info should be in a new post.

The STARA.COM and STARB.COM are, as I mentioned, DOS executables. You do not need to 'open' or 'run' them from Windows. They are at the same time the game itself, and the place where your progress is saved.

Every time you press Escape and 'Save and Exit' from the game, the progress is saved directly to STARA.COM and STARB.COM files and stay there until you run the game again.

To back them up, just copy those two files to a safe folder (a CD is just fine), and to restore that 'save game' copy them back from there to the place where you found them, overwriting the two files that are there.
Post edited April 27, 2014 by Links
Hoping to get a little help here. Just purchased the original Star Flight and it runs in DOSBOX fine. Then it asks the video emulation question and that works just fine. It then goes to the two start up screens and then goes to the load game screen where it says "game in progress but not saved, PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT. I have read through the information on the website but it doesn't mention this anywhere. I can't be the only one having this issue or am I? Please help!

Marlin
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svdsrfr73: Hoping to get a little help here. Just purchased the original Star Flight and it runs in DOSBOX fine. Then it asks the video emulation question and that works just fine. It then goes to the two start up screens and then goes to the load game screen where it says "game in progress but not saved, PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT. I have read through the information on the website but it doesn't mention this anywhere. I can't be the only one having this issue or am I? Please help!

Marlin
First of all, some of the instructions here really need to be stickied. Back in the day, the game came on a pair of 5-1/4 inch floppy disks. They warned you very clearly to make copies and copies of copies. Do not play on the original disks.

You might have to reinstall it. I do a manual copy of the STARFLT directory.

There should be instructions earlier in this thread on how to save a game.

EDIT: And darned if I can find posts on exactly this subject. They should be all over the place.
Post edited November 19, 2015 by KHHill91
Kinda late with an answer, but this post is on topic: http://www.gog.com/forum/starflight/problems_pls_help
Post edited December 11, 2015 by Links
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Fenyx4: Yes. The save files are STARA.COM and STARB.COM they are in the GOG directory under Starflight 1/STARFLT/PLAY. To backup you can simply make copies of these.

BONUS ROUND:
Some fans back in the day modified the savegame mechanism of Starflight 2 to work with Starflight 1. I'm not sure who did this originally but I got them from starflt.com.

I zipped the necessary files up and put them here.
Unzip them to <Gog directory>/Starflight 1 and 2/Starflight 1/STARFLT/PLAY

Then modify your conf file at <Gog directory>/Starflight 1 and 2/Starflight 1/dosboxSF1.conf and change the second to last line from "STARFLT.COM" to "call SF1.BAT"
The download page doesn't exist. :(
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Fenyx4: Yes. The save files are STARA.COM and STARB.COM they are in the GOG directory under Starflight 1/STARFLT/PLAY. To backup you can simply make copies of these.

BONUS ROUND:
Some fans back in the day modified the savegame mechanism of Starflight 2 to work with Starflight 1. I'm not sure who did this originally but I got them from starflt.com.

I zipped the necessary files up and put them here.
Unzip them to <Gog directory>/Starflight 1 and 2/Starflight 1/STARFLT/PLAY

Then modify your conf file at <Gog directory>/Starflight 1 and 2/Starflight 1/dosboxSF1.conf and change the second to last line from "STARFLT.COM" to "call SF1.BAT"
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dickola: The download page doesn't exist. :(
Thanks dickola I hadn't seen the earlier posts about it not working anymore. I've updated my original post with a new link and some new instructions. Hope this helps!
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svdsrfr73: Hoping to get a little help here. Just purchased the original Star Flight and it runs in DOSBOX fine. Then it asks the video emulation question and that works just fine. It then goes to the two start up screens and then goes to the load game screen where it says "game in progress but not saved, PRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT. I have read through the information on the website but it doesn't mention this anywhere. I can't be the only one having this issue or am I? Please help!

Marlin
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KHHill91: First of all, some of the instructions here really need to be stickied. Back in the day, the game came on a pair of 5-1/4 inch floppy disks. They warned you very clearly to make copies and copies of copies. Do not play on the original disks.

You might have to reinstall it. I do a manual copy of the STARFLT directory.

There should be instructions earlier in this thread on how to save a game.

EDIT: And darned if I can find posts on exactly this subject. They should be all over the place.
Sorry for the lateness... I have the original 5.25's and I was lucky to have a Tandy 1000 SX with the dual 5.25s for copies. Infact, my first ever PC game was Starflight, which I broke 90 mins after getting it for this reason. I had to save my allowance for almost a year to re-buy the $49.95 copy from my local Radio Shack.... Just reminiscing. *rocks on porch with a shotgun and lemonade waiting for that smart salesman* I learned to make batch files just for this reason. :D
I tried saving the STARA and STARB files into another folder but when I transferred them back, I got the same message.

I would consider trying one of the other methods (i.e. .BAT files or overwriting the CONF file but I know NOTHING about coding so I am sure I will do it wrong. (AND mess up the game folder.)

Any help would be appreciated.
OK, the forum just ate my post...
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finsfanct: I tried saving the STARA and STARB files into another folder but when I transferred them back, I got the same message.

I would consider trying one of the other methods (i.e. .BAT files or overwriting the CONF file but I know NOTHING about coding so I am sure I will do it wrong. (AND mess up the game folder.)

Any help would be appreciated.
I will make a leap and assume you mean that the game is telling you "Game in progress but not saved." (and also that you are running the game in Windows).

GOG made changes to the way the game is run and saved in March of this year. The changes are to allow cloud saves for both Starflight games. Even if you do not use Galaxy, the installation and way of running the game is the same for the backup installer.

A side effect is that the .COM files in the directory '\Starflight\STARFLT\PLAY' are not being used anymore. Instead, the game is being run from and saved to '\Starflight\cloud_saves\STARFLT\PLAY'. In any and all instructions that mention the first directory, change it to the second and they should work.

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A good change was that they also modified the batch commands run when starting the game, allowing you to reset the game to the beginning right then, by pressing 2 at the prompt that appears. That should be enough to normalize things in your case.

If it isn't, uninstall the game and make sure ALL files and directories are gone. All should be working fine when you install the game again.

As long as you press Escape and then 1, to save / exit, you should never run into the "Game in progress but not saved." situation.

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As an aside, making these changes to just get one (1) save game in the cloud, instead of adding a more thorough batch file allowing for multiple save slots, etc., is quite useless.

Also, running the game from the very same files/directory that get saved and restored from an online backup instead of a separate copy... what could possibly go wrong? LOL
Thought I would thank you twice!

I saved a copy of my "CloudSave" STARA and STARB files and I can now recover my progress when the game glitches.
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finsfanct: Thought I would thank you twice!
Bonus round! If you want to add the batch file to have several saves with the menu that I posted in this topic before, here are the simplified instructions:

** WARNING: This will make GOG Galaxy cloud saves useless for this game, since it will start using the '\Starflight\STARFLT\PLAY\' directory again to run the game **

1) Download this zip file from my MediaFire:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/layan2e0jpuiioy/Starflight_1_Menu_for_GOG_release_version_1.0_%2828045%29.zip/file

2) Extract only 'sfmenu.bat' to '\Starflight\STARFLT\'

3) Extract only 'dosboxSF1_single.conf' to '\Starflight\' (notice the different directories), overwriting the existing one.

[or, you can make a backup of the GOG installed 'dosboxSF1_single.conf' by renaming it before extracting the new one, which allows you to restore GOG's way of running the game easily if you want to: just delete the new 'dosboxSF1_single.conf' and rename the backup to that original name again]

4) Run the game in the same way as before (any shortcuts created by the GOG installation, as well as Galaxy should work fine)

5) Enjoy!

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VirusTotal.com scan for the paranoids amongst us :)

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b0dcd5c0613c008c55aabed149b3fbf0a686f748904cc72f112479e8f2d68d9f/detection
Post edited July 30, 2019 by Links