For the packing and unpacking of the ras files I used rasmaker, a commandline tool by remedy included on the original cd, I suppose for mod making. The conversion is also done by a existing tool that just loops trough the unpacked files and converts all .wav to a single format. There is also an embedded vbscript section for elevating the commandprompt and then running the batch file from there. That came from some example by ms, I just wrapped it up in batchfile, so it's really like shell for a couple of helper apps, doing many conditional checks to determine the state of the found files.
It
started out when vista was released and max1's sound stopped working. I used a windows tool called goldsound on the unpacked game to try different formats and when I found the right format I did a batch conversion. This was awkward but worked and proved the concept.
Then I started looking for tools that could do the needed conversion from the commandline, so it could be like a one step fix, and found sox, a freeware sound conversion toolkit that worked from the commandline just like rasmaker. At that point the fix just left the game in unpacked state, as I had not yet found out how to repack it. The problem with leaving it unpacked was that mods no longer worked properly and it was harder keeping track of all the files.
There where other problems too with the original patch code, the paths where fixed so the game had to be in a certain non standard location, on the original path uac issues prevented my batchfile from writing, and batchfiles can't elevate themselves. And ofcourse when the game got released at steam, a whole new bunch of issue's came up, like other paths and steam being able to 'verify' integrity and re-download the patched files. Had to find a way to detect that too. Meanwhile I also found out about localized versions of max1 where released on cd and used different filenames.
So after a while I decided to do a proper rewrite, that would kind of smash all frequently occurring problems in one go, work in any path, elevate itself if needed, detect & convert all languages, detect any file or install probs, detect and fix remains of old or failed conversions or damaged installs, fix the problem with the mods and even convert them too. So a couple of revs after that I managed to get it pretty solid and iron most of the bugs out, although there are some known issues with the current one too
... only occurring in very specific conditions.
You can open the batch file in a text editor and review it any time if you want to see how it's doing things. It grew from just a few lines to what is pro'lly one of the most extensive batch files ever seen
batch is not really nice for programming but one can do quite a lot with it...
anyhow... glad you fixed your game with it! have fun playing.