firestorm/RECOVERY.md

Disaster recovery — rebuild this machine from the Gitea mirror

This repo is a complete mirror of C:\VWE\firestorm (source + game assets + the VC6 toolchain + SDKs + build outputs + the deployed game + the _UNUSED archive). Nothing is excluded. Large binaries are stored in Git LFS. A single clone reconstitutes a working tree.

On a fresh Windows machine

1. Install Git for Windows (includes Git LFS) — or Git + git-lfs separately.
2. Enable long paths before cloning (this tree has deep VC98/MFC paths > 260 chars):

   git config --global core.longpaths true
   git config --global core.autocrlf false
   git lfs install
   

   (Also enable the OS setting: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\LongPathsEnabled = 1.)
3. Clone to the same location so the absolute paths baked into the toolchain config resolve:

   git clone https://gitea.mysticmachines.com/VWE/firestorm.git C:\VWE\firestorm
   

   git clone pulls LFS objects automatically. If any are missing: cd C:\VWE\firestorm && git lfs pull.

After restore — make it buildable / runnable

• Build toolchain (VC6): import the registry config (ELEVATED), per build-env\README.md:

  reg import C:\VWE\firestorm\build-env\vc6-hklm-registration.reg
  reg import C:\VWE\firestorm\build-env\vc6-directories.reg
  

  Then build Gameleap\code\mw4\Code\MechWarrior4.dsw (see CLAUDE.md STEP 1/3), or just use the already-mirrored Gameleap\code\rel.bin / pro.bin binaries.
• Run the game: build-env\deploy-mw4.ps1 reassembles C:\VWE\firestorm\MW4 and applies the Win11 DirectDraw compat shim; or run the already-mirrored C:\VWE\firestorm\MW4\MW4.exe after re-applying the shim (AppCompat is keyed on exe path, so a new machine needs it re-set — the deploy script does this).
• Editor: Gameleap\mw4\run-editor.bat (installed in place; see CLAUDE.md STEP 9).

Notes

• core.autocrlf=false — line endings are preserved byte-for-byte; keep it that way.
• The mirror includes machine-specific bits (registry exports, deploy AppCompat). They restore the files, but registry/AppCompat state must be re-imported on the new machine (steps above).
• See CLAUDE.md for the full build/runtime reconstruction history and README.md for the layout.