[FREE TOOL] Pincab Toolbox — scan your VPX/Popper install and find what's broken (missing ROMs, 64-bit mismatches, backglasses…)
Hi everyone,
Like many of you, I've spent more evenings fixing my cab than playing it. A table crashing with a cryptic VPinMAME error, a DMD that died after moving to 64-bit, a backglass that stopped showing… and every time, an hour of digging through folders to find the cause.
So I built the tool I wished existed: Pincab Toolbox, a free scanner that diagnoses your install in seconds (a bit longer on a large collection).
What it checks:
Missing ROMs — reads every table script (cGameName), resolves VPMAlias.txt, and names the exact missing .zip in VPinMAME\roms. Original/EM tables are recognized, so it doesn't flag them.
Extracted ROMs — a ROM unzipped into a folder won't be loaded by VPinMAME; it flags that.
32/64-bit mismatches — THE trap of the VPX 10.8 transition: it inventories the bitness of every exe/DLL (VPinMAME, dmddevice, B2S, FlexDMD) and flags broken hybrid installs.
Windows-blocked DLLs — a file extracted from a downloaded ZIP can be quarantined ("Mark of the Web") and fail to load; it detects that.
Missing dependencies — B2S Backglass Server or FlexDMD required by your tables but absent.
Backglass & Popper — missing .directb2s files, tables not registered in the PinUP Popper database, PUP-Pack presence.
Compatibility — nFozzy/Roth physics signatures and minimum VPX versions declared in scripts.
Outdated tables (beta) — checks against the open-source Virtual Pinball Spreadsheet database and links to the official page only.
Script Diff — compare two versions of a table side by side before overwriting yours.
Ground rules I committed to (because this community rightly cares):
100% local — nothing is uploaded, zero telemetry, no account.
Read-only — the scanner NEVER modifies a file, a registry key or a database.
Never downloads content — no tables, no ROMs, no media, ever. This is a diagnostic tool, not a downloader. The community sites remain THE source.
Screenshot: [insert scan screenshot]
Download: https://pincab-toolbox.vercel.app/ (Unsigned exe for now → the usual SmartScreen warning: "More info" → "Run anyway". Code signing lands in the next release.)
There's a built-in demo mode if you want to see it in action before pointing it at your real setup.
It's a v0.1 and I'm looking for blunt feedback — false positives, exotic tables, confusing messages. I fix fast. If it proves useful, a version that repairs some of what the scanner finds is in the works — always with a backup first, a preview of what will change, and undo. The scanner itself stays free and read-only, forever.
Thanks, and happy flipping!
Flipsync
V