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Myth: Difference between revisions

300 bytes added ,  27 October 2025
correction on installer behavior; nothing changed in the installer from v1.0 to v1.3, just the uninstaller
(integrated the knowledge about the uninstaller bug that we gleaned from the Myth II v1.0 build which appeared online in May; this really deserves its own section now)
(correction on installer behavior; nothing changed in the installer from v1.0 to v1.3, just the uninstaller)
 
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==Uninstaller bug==
==Uninstaller bug==
Myth II has some [https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/01/06/myth-ii-uninstall historical notoriety] over its colossal uninstaller bug. Though it was fixed before the game released to the general public, the uninstaller was originally scripted to recursively remove all files in the same directory as itself. This meant that if you placed the game files at the root level of a hard drive (not inside C:\MythII\ but C:\ itself), your entire hard drive would be deleted along with the game.
[[Image:Penny Arcade - Myth II.jpg|right|x500px]]
Myth II has some historical notoriety for its colossal uninstaller bug. Though it was fixed before the game released to the general public, the uninstaller was originally scripted to recursively remove all files in the same directory as itself. This meant that if you placed the game files at the root level of a hard drive (not inside C:\MythII\ but C:\ itself), your entire hard drive would be deleted along with the game.


You might wonder why someone would ever place the game's files on their hard drive without any enclosing folder, but the v1.0 installer would do this if you simply clicked on "c:\" as the custom install location in the Browse dialog. The files would not be placed inside a MythII folder but directly under C:\; thus the uninstaller's recursive deletion would run from C:\ as well.
You might wonder why someone would ever place the game's files on their hard drive without any enclosing folder, but the installer made this easy to do. If you chose a custom install location for Myth II and then simply clicked on "c:\" in the Browse dialog, the files would not be placed inside a MythII folder but directly under C:\ (this appears to be a common installer behavior in Windows). Thus, with the game directory being C:\, the uninstaller's recursive deletion would run from C:\ as well.


The bug was discovered when this happened to a Japanese localizer at the end of the game's development. Bungie decided to stop production on the game, tear open the game boxes on the assembly line, and replace the game discs. This cost the company approximately $800,000, a difficult financial blow for a small game studio, and was a key factor in deciding to sell Bungie to another company.
The bug was discovered when this happened to a Japanese localizer at the end of the game's development. Bungie decided to stop production on the game, tear open the game boxes on the assembly line, and replace the game discs. This cost the company approximately $800,000, a difficult financial blow for a small game studio, and was a key factor in deciding to sell Bungie to another company.
If you'd like to experience the hard drive wiping bug for yourself (presumably inside a VM), you can find the forbidden v1.0 release of the game [https://archive.org/details/myth-2_202504 here].


==External links==
==External links==