Spring RTS Engine

After thoroughly enjoying Total Annihilation during my college days (without actually *purchasing* the games, to my everlasting shame) I have acquired the original game and the Core Contingency expansion CDs. I am having some trouble using a patch, and I figured there must be plenty of classic TA players on these boards, so I thought I'd ask here:

Despite owning both CDs, I want to use one of the many no-CD patches available. The one I use works, but a lot of the maps just don't work - the preview screen is grayed out and the map fails to load. Searches on other forums turned up only one lead. Some people said that one must do a "full install" to get the maps on the hard drive rather than on the CD. I can't find any special way to install TA that's "full". Anyone know what they're talking about?

Side question: I accidentally wiped out a lot of my favorite downloaded maps when I reinstalled with the CDs. All the places I get when I google seem to be so old, the map files are no longer available for download. Does anyone know where I can find fan-created TA maps nowadays? Thanks!

http://www.tauniverse.com/
http://www.fileuniverse.com/

Manually copy Totala2.hpi from your CD to your HD.

Thanks for a more specific reply, zwzsg. Just what I needed.

aegis, not sure how I missed that map locale the first time around, although there are still plenty of old maps I'm still missing. All these mods should keep me busy for along time to come. Thanks again to both of you!