How to get your Backups for Christmas!

This post is for all the family and friends who have asked "Where do you get those NDS / Wii / PC Games?".  The answer is much more complicated than you would like, so here is a walk through on how and where to get your game backups.

NOTE:  Downloading backups of titles you do not own is illegal, this tutorial is for those who wish to download backups of titles they legally own in order to make gaming more convenient and to preserve their property.


Games, Applications, Movies, Music, etc. are all available on the internet via newsgroups on Usenet.  Originally a system of message servers known as Usenet was created to exchange messages across the internet between colleges.  This system of messaging has spread over the years and now also carries binary files embedded in the messages.  Messages like these are now archived and served up via companies like EasyNews.

I prefer to use EasyNews.com because they have a superb web interface for searching and downloading these files without the need for any News Reader software on your PC.

Here are the steps I will explain for downloading and installing backups, I started writing this blog entry and the tutorial got huge, so I am breaking it up into several parts:

• Part 1 - Setup
• Setup an account with www.EasyNews.com (this is only needed the first time).
• Setup some tools for downloading and working with the files you download.
  
  
• Part 2 - Download
• Find the filename of the game you want to download.
• Download the game backups.
  
  
• Part 3 - Install
• Installing an NDS Game onto a Flash Cartridge.
• Installing a Wii Game using Wii Backup Manager into WiiFlow

Part 1

Setup www.EasyNews.com Account

1. Follow this link to setup your account: EasyNews.
2. I recommend choosing the EasyNews Classic package for $10 / month.  This will give you 20 GB of downloads, plus roll over gigs for any unused bandwidth.
3. A Wii Backup is typically 2.5 GB on average, while an NDS Backup averages 64MB in size.

Tools Required

1. There are two tools you will need to have, a tool to decompress files and a tool for downloading multiple files reliably.
2. To work with decompressing files I recommend using 7zip.  7zip can extract files from all of the common compression types used on the web.  .rar files are the most common in the world of Newsgroups.
3. A Download Manager tool can manage downloading multiple files without worrying about any broken or incomplete downloads.  In addition it will maximize the speed at which you download files by using multiple connections over the internet to save time.
4. For a download manager I prefer Free Download Manager (FDM).  Here are links to download all these tools:
   
   7-zip : Download Page
   Free Download Manager: Download Page
   WinRar : Download Page
   
   
5. Finally if you plan to put games onto a Wii hard drive, you will need Wii Backup Manager
1. Wii Backup Manager is available from www.GBATemp.net a forum for all things Nintendo.  Here is a link to the post which has links to the latest version: Download Page
2. After downloading at Install it
   
6. Here is a link to a video on how to use 7zip to extract .rar files:
   
   
7. Here is a tutorial on Free Download Manager:
   
   
   
   
8. Once you have these tools downloaded and installed you can continue with Part 2 of this tutorial.

Part 2

Find the Game's Filename

1. Games are uploaded using an abbreviated filename which usually is an acronym for the game title plus an extenstion for the group's name that posted the backup.
2. To find the filename there is a website which holds a list of the games on the internet: www.ABGX.net
3. ABGX stands for Alt.Binaries.Games which is a popular NewsGroup for game backups.  The site has databases for games on Xbox, PC, Wii, PS3, and Nintendo DS all categorized.
4. Find the database that pertains to the backup you are seeking: i.e. NDS games are located in the NDS Game Database.  Click this link on the site:
5. Now you will see the search box and the list of game releases currently out there.
   

   

   Search Results

6. Simply type a portion (not the whole name) of the games title into the search box and click GO.
7. The list will narrow to the games that match your query.  Find the game you want and take note of the Filename column.  This is what you will search for on EasyNews to find the game.
8. The titles will show a region JAP (Japanese) for example will be in a foreign language, you should focus on USA region titles.
9. Some uploads are Nuked which means there is something wrong with them and you should avoid those files.  Nuked items will show the Nuclear symbol on them.
10. Now proceed to EasyNews to find the file on easynews.

Download the Files

1. Open your browser and navigate to http://members.easynews.com.
2. You will be prompted for a username and password.  Enter the credentials you used to create your easynews account above.
3. Scroll down to the Global Search box and enter the filename you took note of earlier.  For example I will enter nt-mdkmu, which is for Mario vs. Donkey Kong MiniLand Mayhem for NDS, and click SEARCH button.
4. EasyNews returns the results of the search like this:

Search Results

5. A game is usually rar'ed up or zipped up into several smaller files.  A Wii game is usually a .iso file around 4GB in size, but it is rar'ed into many smaller files to make it easier to upload to the internet.  EasyNews will often autounrar these files for you and without you having to download many smaller files, you can use a Download Manager to download the 1 large .iso file.
6. I recommend clicking the Size column to have it sort in descending order by size.  That way you can see if there is already an unrared .iso or .nds file for Wii or NDS respectively.
7. If you find the .iso or .nds file you can click on the file to download it.
8. If there is no .iso file or .nds file in the case of our example above, you can make use of the EasyNews Zip Manager to package up all of the files you need into a single .zip file.
9. One other thing to learn is Par files.
1. Par files are parity files, which is basically a list of files in a set including some additional information to help rebuild a set of files if any are missing or damaged.
2. Par files are useful to make sure you download all of the individuals files needed to unzip or unrar a larger file like a Wii .iso file.
10. If you see a green link to [parViewer] you are in luck, you can simply click that link which will open up the par viewer on Easy News for that file set.  That way you can see all of the files needed to download by themselves without all of the other "noise" of files on the group.

Par Viewer

11. This is the par viewer for the Mario game we searched for.  In here we can see there is an image, probably a cover art image, for the game.
12. There is also a .nfo file which is an Information file which is a standard way to tell information about a game or software that has been "released" to the internet.
13. Also there is a .sfv file, this is a verification file which is not really needed any more these days, now that we have par files.
14. All of the remaining .rXX files are part of a Rar archive set.  These are the files we are most interested in.
15. The quickest way to grab what you want is to click the Check All (no par) button.  This will select what we need.
16. Next, each user account on EasyNews has 10 zip manager queues.  You can think of these as folders for holding files you want to download.  You select using the drop down list (currently says default) an empty queue.
17. Then you click the ZIP button to collect the checked files into a zip file in that queue slot you selected.
18. This will bring up the Zip Manager window.

Zip Manager

19. Now all that is left is to click the download link to begin downloading your zip file.  If the file size is less than 100 MB you can just click it to download it with the web browser, but if it is much larger you should use a download manager.
20. Make sure you know where you are downloading your files to.  I recommend creating a Downloads folder in the root of your largest drive.  i.e. C:\Downloads
21. Finally you will need look at the files you downloaded.  If theare are zipped or rar'ed you will need to unzip or unrar them using 7zip.
22. I recommend creating a folder structure to organize the games you plan to keep on your PC.
1. I have a folder that has a seperate folder for each file type (Wii, NDS, etc.).
2. Then I make sure the filenames are consistant renaming as needed to keep things organized:

23. Now proceed to Part 3 to install the games.

Part 3

Installing an NDS game onto a Flash Cartridge

1. Flash cartridges come in all types, but most have a MicroSD memory card they use to hold the games and save data for the NDS.
2. Locate the Micro SD card, and a card reader.  You should have a USB adapter that lets you slide the MicroSD chip into it, and plug it into a USB slot in your PC.
3. This will make available a new Drive.  Open the Computer icon on your desktop or click START and then Computer to see the drives you have available.
4. Find the drive and open it up, it should look something like this:

5. Now open another Computer window, and navigate to the folder you saved the downloads to. i.e. C:\Downloads.
6. To install a game onto the NDS all you need to do is drag the .nds file from the downloads folder to the other window that has the SD card open.
7. If you ever need to save space you can delete .nds files from your SD card that you aren't using any longer.  If you make sure to preserve the .sav files (which contain the Save Data for the game) you will leave you game saves in tact should you ever want to put the game back onto the SD card to play.

Installing a Wii game onto Wii Flow loader

1. Unhook the USB drive from you Wii and hook it to your PC.
2. Now open your copy of Wii Backup Manager.

3. Select the "Drive 1" tab.
4. Click "Drive" menu, select your drive.
5. Select the "Files" tab.
6. Click "Add" and select "Files..". Select your ISOs, CISOs, RARs, .wbfs in the dialog.
7. In the files list, tick all the items you want to transfer to the WBFS drive.
8. Click "Transfer" and select "Drive 1".
9. Unhook the USB drive, rehook it to the Wii and go Play!

I hope this helps you all!  If you have trouble with anything, try searching www.Google.com.  That's the best way to learn!

Good Luck,

Jake

I hate it when Visual Studio is slow...

If you have ever coded a Wpf or Silverlight application using Visual Studio, you know what I mean by, it is slow to open a XAML file.

Well you can easily save yourself 30 minutes a day just by changing the default editor for XAML files in Visual Studio.  Here is how:

1. Open a solution in Visual Studio.
2. Right click on a .xaml file in the Solution Explorer.
3. Choose "Open With..." from the menu.
4. Find "Source Code (Text) Editor" in the list and click it.
5. Now click the "Set as Default" button and choose OK.

Now whenever you double-click on a .xaml file it will open in the Code Editor.

NOTE: This is not the same as "Always open documents in full XAML view" because that option still parses the document and hangs VS for 30 seconds every time you open a file.

Have fun saving time!

Jake