PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows How Do I Know If I Got All of My Styles Installed?

I installed BIAB 2016 from my hard drive and it never prompted me for the bonus 8 pak. How can I tell if this got installed?

I installed the 49-PAK from a disc they sent but how do I confirm these styles are all present too?

Generally, how do I tell if I have all of the styles I purchased? Or if, like others here, I may be missing some?

I did a fast rebuild and then tried a slow rebuild to ensure everything is listed.

First I got this message which says 5,088 styles are being processed.

Then I got this image which says there are 5,089 styles.

Then I got this message saying 12 additional styles were added,

And finally I got this message saying total styles is 4,752!

How do I make any sense of this to know whether I got all of my styles installed or if I am missing some?

Very confusing!

I too have been looking, apparently the "what add ons do I have" window only lists the MIDI styles, if this is true, then it only confuses everyone.

The N/A situation has always been confusing and I have tended to ignore the few N/A's that have been shown prior to 2016. The "what add-ons do I have" only seems to show what complete style sets are missing. It doesn't pick up individual missing styles within a set so if a particular style got "lost" it doesn't help.

I have every download saved back to 2010 and recently did a complete install on a second computer. About 20 styles were N/A on the new install but most of them showed traces of the missing styles e.g. demo files etc so just the actual .sty files were missing. I found the missing .sty files on the first computer, copied them to the second one and many of the N/A's disappeared.

The situation has got more confusing with 2016 because of the new style picker with slow/fast rebuilds and extra yellow flags. Also some of the N/A's may be legitimate depending on what was originally purchased over the years - it's easy to forget. The ongoing Realtrack upgrades tends to confuse the situation. I think I have purchased every style going back 15 years so I have sent a list of my current N/A's to PG asking how to get hold of them.

PG need to get to grips with the N/A situation. It's going to get worse, as more and more styles are issued.

Tony

As Tony mentioned, I'd be pretty sure PG Music will be currently investigating

This is a train crash, this program has booby traps everywhere.

How many *.sty files are in your bb folder?

I have never understood why there is not a master spread sheet type listing showing EVERY midi and real track released to date along with the style it was associated with and it's release date and or bonus track release. I think people get confused by the difference between styles and the instrument tracks that are associated with those styles.

The new style picker is an improvement on providing some of that information but it would be better served by having an associated track list that very plainly lists the (track number), (a very brief description such as instrument type), (style), (midi or real track), (release date), (general release or add on/bonus track), (availability if not installed, bonus packs would show not available), (installed or not). I believe most of this information is already listed in the track and styles lists but it is not consolidated in an easy to read list. At least I haven't found it so please forgive if it does.

I understand the concern with misleading advertising. PG should be addressing this thread and I am surprised they haven't already. PG has assigned a value to the cost of the available tracks. You can buy them in sets and you can buy limited releases through bonus packs not available in the general release package. They also force you to buy an entire style pack instead of selling the tracks individually. I have tracks I will never use but I have them. They have one of the weirdest pricing models I have ever seen but they were consistent in that model. They have now changed that model and in doing so some buyers did not get the same value as before.

I actually benefited from the change as I did not upgrade last year and was disappointed I didn't get a few tracks I wanted in the 2015 bonus package. Now I have them but that doesn't mean it was right. I personally would rather see them upgrade the program features for free and then sell the tracks individually or in discounted style packages as they release them.

Has anyone solved this problem yet?

Z

in my bb folder I have 5,088 files with the .STY extension.

in my bb folder I have 4,736 files with the .STY extension. But whose counting.

I know I got more somewhere, but the BIAB froze and I had to shut it down (a case of the active screen being hidden so I could not access it). Best to leave sleeping dogs lay!

If it makes you feel any better:

Please note, I've been accumulating and yearly overwriting .sty files and adding new .sty files since DOS and I've never skipped an update or bonus pak and essentially can get the SAME BASIC (i.e., "PG only") style count as you, which is:

4,740

If you look at your 3rd and 4th posts you have:

4752 total (from 4th post) MINUS 12 user styles (from 3rd post) to give a TOTAL (PG styles) of 4740.


I had to go back and do some house cleaning of .bin files to get your count (my user count got inflated because I was not keeping things cleaned up - more later on this) so I'm glad I did this exercise.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND anyone else does this because if you screw up the .bin' and/or delete wrong files you may have to re-install to recover the factory starting point .bin files - plus you are an adult if you screw it up it's your fault.


1) First I renamed (actually deleted) my "User_stylz1.bin" from the BB\data directory, then.

2) I renamed (again actually deleted) my existing "stylz1.bin" file, then

3). I made a COPY of "Factory_stylz1.bin" and renamed it TO "stylz1.bin" (without a "style1.bin" file BIAB cannot OPEN the style picker window), then

4). I ran BIAB and then style picker:

4a). The first time you do this style picker needs to run the "Fast" rebuild - just let it. You get 4740 (if you have and own everything) in the "found" window. For a second just ignore the "xyz items in list" at the far left towards middle-bottom of the Style Picker window, that count will get re-set/updated when you close the Style Picker window and reopen it. It will (should) then show "4740 items in list" (again assuming you have [i.e., OWN], everything and it is all installed).

NOTE: before I go on please note I have a total of 5,733 .sty files in my \BB root directory (remember that number).


4b). When I run the SLOW (complete re builder) it says adding styles 1, 2, 3, ... n out of 5734 listed or found (5733 actual .sty files in my \bb directory [see note above] PLUS an obvious null\dummy or place holder .sty file for a grand total of 5,734).


This "n out of 5734" just means the slow re-builder is simply scanning the \BB directory and counts the .sty files, then checks which ones, one at a time, are PG and which ones are user/3rd party, that's all. No magic or high order combinatorics, logic theory, or set theory.


In my case, I have 663 out of 5734 (actually 5733) .sty files that are 3rd party/user styles and that number (count) then gets added to the 4740 basic to yield 5,403 total. I can vouch for all 663 user/3rd party counts. I have 388 Notes Norton styles (counted with a a file finder utility) and 275 user and web (other 3rd party) styles (again counted with a file finder utility) . So numbers all "jive."

As another verification of 4740,

Before this exercise my Style Picker window said "6667 items in list" (aka 6667 total) which included 1927 user/3rd party styles. My user styles were being WAY over counted because of me screwing around with duplicates a while back.

But notice even with inflated user/3rd party styles the math yields: 6667 - 1927 = 4740 PG only styles!

and when I look for not found styles (or N/A) styles (missing) I get NONE.

Larry

Larry,

Thanks for taking to the time to write such a detailed post. I found this very informative and very useful.

Much appreciated,
Noel

P.S. Happy New Year!

Then that is what you have. The PGMusic installers don't go anywhere else to install style files for BIAB. There are more style files scattered around in several folders. But these folders are dedicated to specific purposes used by specific programs.


I suspect, I really didn't analyze, that the style name format is hardcoded into the file structure in the format 8.3 and this cannot be changed at the moment. So every style BIAB recognizes is in the root folder of Drive:\BB in the format of ????????.STY.

So your file count in Drive:\BB should match the number of installed styles using the slow rebuild option.

Larry,

Many thanks for the tips.
I tried your approach and came up with a total of 4628

Missing (N/A) files amount to 116 making a total of 4744, which is pretty close to your result.

I have purchased 2016 EverythinPak but still have 116 missing, almost all of them are listed as "Bonus"
but I have install (and downloaded) many times the 49Pak.

See my thread here:- http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=327904#Post327904

I have emailed Tech Support and awaiting their response following the holiday.

I don't know if it was there before, but I just spotted in my Style Picker a number for 'items in list' 4,741 in my case. This number is found in the bottom left, in between the large and the small panes.
I also notice a function called Copy List that dumps a text file somewhere or the other and reports the number of styles in a message. I am not sure if this number popped up after. Maybe this number only appeared after I built the text file. I am not sure.

If I try a slow rebuild I get similar numbers to John, 5071 styles, then a message saying eight more were found that will be added, then they are not added and the style picker still states 4,741.

It would be better if this list was called 'Total Number of Styles Found' instead of 'items in list' and it would be better if this text was in larger font and more prominent, maybe over on the blank left panel.

I don't think they will change it as the programmers seem to have a 'that will do attitude' as is evidenced all over the program. I often feel like a ferret in a labrinth

Z

Am just loving the negative attitudes comment first thing on a Sunday morning.

Carry on...

Having my coffer now.