In later years there has been an increasing use of an .exe file that will self-install downloaded custom content. If one installs CS directly from an .exe file one really doesn’t know what files it has put where so if there is a problem after install the game will either need to be reinstalled or your you’ll need to take a copy of your RCT3 program files folder and replace the corrupted RCT3 program files folder with your back-up copy.

This is one area in which two separate computers come in handy. When it turns out that one of the downloaded CS sets needs installation from an .exe file the recommendation is to begin by making the .exe install to the computer on which is your clean install of RCT3, and after the .exe install to use a third party file compare utility against your backup file of the clean RCT3 install in order to confirm what file got put where. Then copy and paste these .exe installed custom files into the earlier mentioned directories (ready for moving over to your other computer) and, if you’re satisfied they work as they should, place the copies where they belong in your other computer.

If you don't wish to use two computers to do this, another way to identify any mystery files installed by an EXE is to use a sandbox application. After you've launched the EXE in your sandbox the EXE will install your new files into the sandbox as it they're actually being installed on the computer after which you'd simply copy and past the contents of the sandbox to a location convenient to you. The sandbox application will probably ask you if you really want copies of those files outside your sandbox. If you don't want to recover any of the files inside the sandbox all you'd need to do is delete the contents of the sandbox and then exit the sandbox application. Your machine is not affected in any way by anything installed inside a sandbox.

One characteristic about installing from an .exe file is that if there is no folder in which to install, the .exe install will create the folders it needs.

If we anticipate a successful EXE installation then some or all of that install will place into the Program Files folder but depending on what part of the world in which one bought his copy of RCT3 there are two variations on that Atari folder’s name:

Atari\RollerCoaster Tycoon 3

Atari\RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3

This is another reason installed CS cannot be accessed in the game. If one’s RCT3 installation is already located in Atari\ RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and the .exe file installs the downloaded CS into Atari\ RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 then you will suddenly find you have both a RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and a RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 folder inside your Atari folder. In this scenario the scenery that’s been installed into Atari\ RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 will not be acknowledged by RCT3 and your newly installed scenery will not won’t appear in your game.

You’ll need to go into the Atari\ RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 folder, remove all the installed scenery from each of the folders the .exe install file created in there and place it in your Atari\ RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 folder. The CS .exe installer will not install another copy of RCT3 on your computer but it will set up an accurate folder hierarchy and place the downloaded custom content where it should go inside the folders it has created.

File BackUp

You would do well to routinely back-up the contents of the RCT3 program files folder. This way, should you end up with a problem with new custom stuff in spite of all your precautions, or if you have installed, moved or altered files and then change your mind but forget what you’ve done, you can simply restore your back-up which will save tons of work.

Re-Named Files

A well known reason downloaded CS does not work is because the person downloading the files has renamed them. Do not rename any of the extracted files. End of.

Corrupted Files

After you’ve launched your game, the two most common errors we will see for installed downloads are:

No :SVD for :SID - this error always means one of two things:-

1

The file requested by the game engine is not where it should be. When file hierarchy has not been preserved, with the scenery being installed inside too many unnecessary additional folders inside the Themed folder, the game engine can’t find the files where they’re supposed to be. Another cause is if the CS artist not has not named one or more of the folders correctly when creating the set in which case the game engine would decide the files that it needs to run the set aren’t where they’re supposed to be.

2

The game engine is not happy with one or more of the files in the set due to actual file corruption.

Unresolved Track Section

3

This is an error that indicates there's either a track section that's missing, or the track section is there but it cannot be accessed or processed by the game engine. The inaccessibility of the file might be due to incorrect file naming by the CTR creator, or due to actual file corruption.

If you have installed custom content already and it's not working as it should be, uninstall that, re-download the file(s), and then reinstall it making sure you follow any and all the instructions on either the download page(s) and/or in the extracted file.

Outside of getting an error message in RCT3, the quickest way to confirm if the file is corrupted is to right click each of the folders containing the downloaded items and take a look at the file's properties. If you yourself have already seen that there are files inside the folder you are checking and properties indicates there are no files in the folder and/or the folder contains 0KB of information this is a sure sign the file is corrupted.

Re-downloading of files is highly recommended whenever there are problems because compressed files by their very nature sometimes just do not download completely. Also the download might have finished as a complete error free file but may have become corrupted sometime during the extracting process. More rarely the files have become corrupted during uploading by the CS creator.