AACW hanging at launch

[Mickey3D]

Hi,

I'm running AACW (with patch 1.12) on Windows XP Professionnal SP 3.

I noticed that if I run outlook express 6 (I know, there is more recent mail software...) before launching AACW, the game will hang at the very beginning of the loading process (before reaching the point where engine is loaded) : no error message, I can kill the task but even if I run again the game it is still hanging. I have to restart the computer to be able to play with AACW.

The log file is attached to this message.

Does somebody have the same kind of trouble ?

Thanks in advance

[Primasprit]

[LEFT]Wow, that's strange, I can't imagine how Outlook should be able to interfere with the loading process of AACW. Is this behaviour reproducible?

Cheers
Norbert
[/LEFT]

[lodilefty]

IIRC, Outlook can have some antivirus, anti-whatever associated with it, that may be getting confused...

Thank you, Bill Gates

[AndrewKurtz]

IIRC, Outlook can have some antivirus, anti-whatever associated with it, that may be getting confused...

Thank you, Bill Gates

I experience the situation on a fairly regular basis where AACW will not launch. It will just sit there before the "Loading Engine 1 of 3" screen (i.e. never see that message). Never happens with WiA or NCP, only AACW.

I doubt it actually has anything to do with Outlook specifically. Just that Outlook can cause the system situation that results in the hang.

Pocus...any specific information from logs that would help you know where it is hanging when this happens?

[Franciscus]

It probably is of no help, but I must say I have no such problem. But I did not install SP3 (heard of problems associated with it) and (almost) allways do a clean reinstall when applying new patches...

[Rafiki]

Running AACW on an XP SP3 here without problems, but haven't tried running it with Outlook run first, though.

[Nial]

I have SP 3 and do not experience this. The occasional CTD, but no hang up on launch. It actualy runs pretty well considering how much file tinkering I do.

Nial

[Clovis]

I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird.

[AndrewKurtz]

Vista SP1 here.

[Mickey3D]

Using "file monitor" tool, I got the logs attached.

It seems that the program is hanging when trying to access Msctf.dll file (I launched the game three times and it always hung on the same file).

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Rafiki]

edit> Since I know for fact, that Rafiki just upgraded to SP3, I'd be interested to know if he is now having difficulties running AACW with Outlook in the background.

I generally don't run Outlook, but I'll see if I can get it tested this evening.

[Mickey3D]

I'd be curious to hear from Mickey3D, if he knows whether he installed XP SP3 on his machines. (He might not know if it was an automatic update, since thousands if not millions of users just let the Microsoft auto-updater operate automatically in the background, which is definitely not a good practice).

I never run Microsoft Update in automatic mode. So when I installed SP3 I did it with full knowledge (but definitely I should have check about possible side effect before installing it ... :bonk

[kwhitehead]

This may seem like a shot in the dark but it's amazing how often it works.

Uninstall AACW
Delete all the folders it used.
Reinstall the original AACW.
Install only the latest patch, 1.12.

Reasons this sometime fixes flaking things are: First AGEOD's patches don't clean up after each other completely. You could have some old files from previous patches. Updates like Microsoft SP3 may have changed ddl's that AACW is using and has references to in the registry.

The above if you haven't already done it is the first step before you beat your head against other brick walls.

Then there is the Microsoft solution to all problems with their flaky software, reinstall everything including the OS. leure: leure:

And if you do this be aware Microsoft in all their brilliance fails to register all the dll's when you install SP3 unless you first boot up SP2 so it will register them.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Mickey3D]

This may seem like a shot in the dark but it's amazing how often it works.

Uninstall AACW
Delete all the folders it used.
Reinstall the original AACW.
Install only the latest patch, 1.12.

Reasons this sometime fixes flaking things are: First AGEOD's patches don't clean up after each other completely. You could have some old files from previous patches. Updates like Microsoft SP3 may have changed ddl's that AACW is using and has references to in the registry.

The above if you haven't already done it is the first step before you beat your head against other brick walls.

I have already uninstall AACW and reinstall it with the latest patch only, without success

Then there is the Microsoft solution to all problems with their flaky software, reinstall everything including the OS. leure: leure:

And if you do this be aware Microsoft in all their brilliance fails to register all the dll's when you install SP3 unless you first boot up SP2 so it will register them.

leure: Thanks but before enduring such a nightmare I will just take care to not launch my mail program before AACW.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Longhairedlout]

Hi there Mickey.... I had a problem very much like yours, AACW would hang at about 1 third of the way across the loading bar.... what I discovered was that spybot was somehow stopping AACW from starting, if you have spybot or any other Spyware scanner installed try uninstalling it and starting the game, it worked for me