VISTA OR XP? Big Technical Issues w/ GG

[ulthar]

A Quick AAR from todays experience. I DID get the game working and it was awesome. (Although I would love to see a report of who has what cassus belli and maybe something from all these wonderful diplomats I have on who may be interested in a trade agreement).

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So I pre-order from gamers gate.

I have windows Vista 32 bit, nice little machine (Except for the OS).

I fire off an email to gamersgate this morning to say how wonderful it is to be able to log in and start downloading the game. This is because I have a little time while I wait for it to download and I am ecstatic.

After a few hit or misses trying to figure it out, I finally realize that if I start the downloader it will progress until it thinks its done and say "Install". Rather than try, I should just exit and re-start the downloader then re-download a little bit more. After 10-20 tries I finally get all 488mb of juicy goodness.

The folder somehow gets renamed from DD-rome to "Temporary Burn Folder". I am not sure if that is important, but read on.

So I start playing a few years. I stop (Fatal mistake!!) and turn it off.

Its at this point that I cannot get it to run again. I am getting something like "The Application was ended in an unexpected way, please contact technical support".

What? I quit the game normally.

I apply the patch, it seems thats already out. Does not solve the problem.

So I try first to "Repair" from the Control Panel. This seems to reinstall me back to 1.0. Does not solve the problem.

I apply the patch again, no effect.

I uninstall. (This may be the big mistake!). So now I go back to Temporary Burn folder and try again. Click on autoplay.exe and I get the splash screen. Now my choices are uninstall or play. Sadly neither work. I am guessing somehow my registry has an entry that makes it think the app is there, but the demoshield icon is displayed and I am informed that it cannot uninstall.

So I burn off the temporary burn folder and bring it over to my old XP machine. Old reliable. it sounds like an airboat and its much slower, but hey, windows XP..so more reliable. Anyway, no love there either.

clicking the autoplay.exe on the drive now tells me that I need to go to control panel to configure my software. well I know thats not true. Thats not how to install the game.

So, my question is; What should I do to play this game short of begging GG for a refund and driving 30 minutes to a gamestop to buy the CD if/when they have one.

 

[jpezli]

A beta downloader was released a while back, maybe it works better with Vista. Otherwise, I think you should contact GamersGate about this issue.

Here's the link:

http://www.gamersgate.com/downloaderBETA

 

[ulthar]

Yes, I have the new downloader.

I do not think this is entirely a gamersgate issue, as the problem is with installation and then afterwards of playing it, I got a message to contact the game designers because the game quit in an unexpected way.

 

[ulthar]

*Bump*

So I actually used a RESTORE point to get rid of the registry entries because even though I thought I had deleted them all, I could not uninstall this game enough to reinstall it.

Then I REDOWNLOADED the game from gamersgate.

Then I REINSTALLED it. Played BLISSFULLY for four hours.

Then I resigned and quit from the main menu.

Then I go to reboot computer, get a strange blue-screen of death about video drivers.

Then I go to launch game after it reboots succesfully (no apparent problem)

It gives me the same error about the runtime being requested to terminate in the unusual way.

I have asked Gamers Gate for a refund until the game will get more stable. On the plus side, I am now going to go back and replay EUIII because I have the paradox itch and I need to scratch.

screenshot of the error attached (my key is registering invalid, I guess because of the refund) so I cannot post in the technical section.

 

[Secret Master]

You should register the game so that you can access the technical support forum. If you bought it via Gamers Gate, you can get the code without even running the game or the downloader. Try registering again.

 

[ulthar]

I did. I Cannot register. It says invalid key.

Can anyone pass my problem on for me?