Innstallation Issues

[eleven_west]

Hi

I have been playing the game on my desktop pc with patch 1.08 until recently. No problems.

Yesterday I installed the game on my laptop, patched it to 1.09. Played fine - however due to low graphics (Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000 only has 16MB graphics, the game is running but very very slow) I uninstalled it on the same day.

And today, I tried to update my desktop pc copy to 1.09. Game wouldn't load anymore. I uninstalled, deleted the folders, restarted the pc, tried to reinstall. No dice - and on top of it now the installation hangs on "Finishing installation" for ages and never proceeds to a full installation.

Mystery? It was playing fine before. No changes whatsoever on my desktop pc software or hardware. Awaiting a reply

[Pocus]

perhaps this can help you:

On some Vista configurations, the set-up process never finishes, or the registration utility doesn’t work. IMPORTANT: Do NOT hit the setup CANCEL button. Doing so will result in an incomplete/corrupt installation. Generally, at this point the installer has completed all of its necessary work already. But for whatever reason, it simply will not unload from memory. Thus, you want to manually terminate it. Launch the Windows Task Manager by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and clicking on task manager. Then, go to the Applications tab and terminate the installer (setup program). The name of the installer should be Setup_AACW.exe or something close, if install AACW. Right click on it and terminate it. At this point, you will need to launch the AGESettings application manually (normally setup does this when it is done). Open the directory where you installed the game (can be C:\Program Files\AGEOD's American Civil War\ for example) and you should see a file called AGESettings. Run it, to finish the installation. At this point, you should be able launch the game and play.

[eleven_west]

Good afternoon

first of all, congratulations once more for your excellent support as always.

I am running WinXP SP2. I have experimented further since yesterday, the agesettings.exe wouldn't run : I uninstalled clean, installed after restart, then in the final step of the installation I ended the task as per your suggestion and tried to start agesettings.exe manually : It would reside in memory but never launch

Further, acw.exe would give me a black screen with loading bar that would load up to about 30% and then freeze (with the program not responding in the taskbar)

After a great deal of experimentation and sifting through the forums, I have disabled my AVG antivirus, my firewall (to which I had set internet access to both acw.exe and agesettings.exe. Didn't work.

The game finally worked when I disabled my internet connection. Agesettings kicked in immediately, I was able to input my key. The game started up normally!! I exit, connect to the internet, run the game : IT WON'T LOAD

So at the moment it only runs when I'm not connected to the internet. Could this be because I had also loaded a copy on my laptop - could it be a duplicate IP protection thingy? Needless to say that I have original versions of both BoA and ACW, however I own more than one computer (as many do) and I mean to have my beloved ageod games resident on both my hard drives. If that means registering my IP addresses with you then so be it - but in all honesty as a legitimate owner I should be able to install the games on a couple of machines without all this fuss..

[Pocus]

No this is not that, there is no need to be connected on the internet and we don't log anything anywhere but on your hard disk.

We tolerate that a given user can install multiple copies of the game on all his computers, we even tolerate that occasionnaly, if for friendly game, a buddy can play against you with only one copy, provided you are physically in the same place.

Have you an anti spyware software?

[eleven_west]

Thanks, that seems fair

I got the latest version of AVG which I disabled completely to reinstall/run. However I'm not sure if anything remains resident in the memory even after I switch it off. What I'll do this evening is I'll try to give permissions to ACW and agesettings on AVG, second step will be to unistall AVG completely clean and try to run ACW while I'm connected to the internet.

If this works then it could be be the antivirus software.. Having said that, I also have the latest version of AVG on my WinXP SP2 laptop and of course use the same broadband connection, and I managed to install and upgrade to 1.09 there without any issue the other day..

Anyway, I'll test a bit more tonight and post the results.

[eleven_west]

Ok I have clean uninstalled AVG anitvirus from my computer, restarted. The game won't run, it will freeze on 30% of the green loading bar on a black screen.

Now if I shut my internet connection, the game starts normally..

It has to be with the way the game uses the internet connection... can you explain?

[gandusowell]

I've been having the same problem as described above. At first the game would freeze on installation, and finally I got it to work last night after I turned off the firewall and disconneted the internet. However, I can't get the game to start today. It freezes at the same point... about 30%

[Pocus]

When you get the freeze, do you already see at the top right of your screen your computer name and IP address? Perhaps this is the query of this address (which serves absolutly no purpose ) which crashes the game (this can be removed in a patch)

[Franciscus]

I do not know if this helps or no, but I am currently running AACW, patched to 1.09, in Windows XP SP2, with no problems in a desktop with AVG antivirus full version 7.5 (with firewall) AND AVG antispyware (and with a recent clean instalation of AACW, pre 1.09), and in a laptop with AVG antivirus free and the plain windows firewall. Never had any problems related with the internet connection.

[eleven_west]

I am convinced that this is has to do with the way the game accesses the internet. I don't see my computer name and IP address when the game crashes, and neither I mind the game querying my IP address everytime I load it if it is for a valid and legitimate purpose. Once I start the game unplugged and after I plug the cable again, my IP address shows up normally in the loading screen. In that sense, I personally wouldn't want to remove it with a patch if there is a reasonable way around this issue. Is this some kind of IP logging for copy protection purposes? I did install a copy on my laptop cause I am hooked enough to contemplate playing a round of ACW on my way to work and another back every day, but would that cause an IP conflict in any way - dunno.

The issue remains, in my opinion it's plain silly - everytime I have to unplug the broadband cable on my pc then load the game and plug it back in and everything works as it should. Does that mean that if I change my computer or if I move house in the future or if I switch my internet provider, my game will become practically unusable? Or how is this supposed to work please explain.

[Rafiki]

The game does not connect to the internet. At all. (except when exhanging savegames)

The reason you don't see the IP address when the cable is unplugged is that your machine doesn't have an IP address when the cable is unhooked and therefore can't display anything.

I experienced the same problem as you yesterday. Though I'm not sure exactly how I fixed it, there were two things I did:

• I scanned for malware with a couple of spyware scanners and found some stuff that got removed
• I terminated some programs that were running unnecessarily (due to having been automatically set to start automatically wen the computer started, without any particular reason. User-friendly? Bah!)

I imagine that there is something that interferes with AACW on your computer, and since going offline fixes things, I suspect it might be malware-related, though I'll be the first to admit that this is mostly speculation on my part.

[Piperman]

Having the same issue as described above, except even after disabling firewall and the internet connection, I have still not yet been able to successfully launch the game. My issue began with the installation hanging up in "finishing installation". I did disconnect my internet connection and was able to run the configuration utility, but game hangs at about 30% as mentioned above.

[eleven_west]

I'll test extensively, we got to nail this.. This is tougher than beating McClellans army in 1862

[Pocus]

I'll post a beta patch within 24 hours, where I have the removed the polling of the IP address. I have good hopes it will unblock your PC.

Look for the link to the patch in this subforum please:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=100

[Pocus]

The public beta patch has been posted:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7876

I welcome you to install it to see if it solves your problem.

Kind Regards,
Pocus.

[Piperman]

The patch didn't do the trick for me... Still gets hung up loading - other ideas, thoughts?

[Pocus]

It seems the IP is polled somewhere else, in the log file, so this could explain. I'll post another subpatch monday or tuesday. Sorry for the trouble.

[gandusowell]

I've only been able to get the game to work once, and that was on initial installation with everything unplugged. I've tried unplugging everything again and starting the game and it still won't work. It tries to load and stops at about 30%, at the bottom left corner it says AGE 2.0 and the golden ageod is in the middle of the screen and that is all I see. I don't see anything which shows an IP address. I did notice that on the initial time when I got the game to work it switched between my monitors. I have a dual screen set up... could that be confusing it somehow?...

Forget it... I tried loading with one monitor and that had no effect.

[eleven_west]

I downloaded the patch.

I tried to start the game once, BEFORE I installed the new patch.

.. the game started normally.. and it works perfect up to now

Needless to say that I haven't changed/removed/altered anything from the settings I had from the last time the game was stuck and before the day of the patch. It just occured to me to give it one last try and it worked. If this isn't Artificial Intelligence gone moody, then what is it??

I have no option but to consider this resolved for me, but I still have no idea as to what caused this abnormality..

[Pocus]

The IP logged is not displayed on screen, another patch will quickly follow so you can try again Piperman & gandusowell.

Sorry for the problem.

[leb300]

The 1.09a patch has not resoved the "lock-up" upon starting the game.
I'm using Vista, have downloaded new Nvidia drivers. The game did start once. But the other suggestions, including re-booting the computer don't work for me.

[Pocus]

There was another place in the game which called for the IP address, so this can explain your problem.

Please download the new 1.09b patch, which correct that and report in case of trouble:

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?p=69945#post69945

[Piperman]

Tried the new patch, and I am sorry to say that it did not work for me. Something to note is that I cannot get the system configuration utility to launch unless I disconnect from the internet... is there something common in the startup routine of both the game and the utility that might cause the problem?

[Pocus]

Sorry to hear that. The thing is common is that our applications are protected against cracking methods, so I guess that if you have an overzealous security program which want to scan it, it can't to a full extent and thus block the game (or the registration utility). If you unplug internet, perhaps this security program don't do the check, as it assumes nothing wrong can happen if you are not connected.

We had an handful of users who had problems with Norton Anti-virus or anti-spyware blocking the game wrongly, so I think this is the same problem, or quite near.

As removing our protection system can not be considered, you have basically three choices:

a) unplug internet if you want to play the game

b) double-check the security levels of your resident softwares, or change them to less aggressive ones.

c) ask for a refund.

We can't do anything else I guess, sorry again. Our games (and applications in general) must be protected. If some false positives are issued by security applications, there is not much we can do.

[mikemike]

is the anti-cracking protection on the CD version? i've bought a copy of the game monday, but am on vacation here with no pc and haven't opened the box. am i going to have problems installing or should i take it back and wait? ( 30 day limit to take back)? -- that is, i have downloaded games from newsgroups to try them out, but i always buy the game if i like it, because of hack/crack installations and update problems. for instance, i always buy Paradox games, and they're not copy protected -- and i think anyone serious about a game like ACW is going to buy it too -- it's too important a game for us. i've had terrible times with copy protection in some games i've bought -- Knights of Honor, for instance, and i've had to find a no-CD crack to load it, since it can't find my genuine CD in the reader.

i suppose i'm saying that i can't see the reality of thinking there'd be 4 gillion sales of a game just because a posited 4 gillion copies were downloaded from squeaky-pirates dot com? and, isn't that exposure itself good in itself?

i really want to play this gaaaame!

mike

[PhilThib]

Can't say... a priori CDV USA did not had one. Just the serial number.
I'll double check with them (or you can call them yourself)
Thanks

[Pocus]

On our side, there is no copy protection (check CDV publisher though, perhaps they added one), this is an anti-piracy protection. That's two different things. The game simply don't allow to be reverse engineered (easily at least). You can safely backup your CD, you can play without CD. The game don't install anything but itself on your PC (it don't install a driver or anything). We don't log or spy your hard disk. We don't connect on the internet. Nothing... except that the application won't agree to be disembowled by cracking tools. I think this is legit.

[mikemike]

On our side, there is no copy protection (check CDV publisher though, perhaps they added one), this is an anti-piracy protection. That's two different things. The game simply don't allow to be reverse engineered (easily at least). You can safely backup your CD, you can play without CD. The game don't install anything but itself on your PC (it don't install a driver or anything). We don't log or spy your hard disk. We don't connect on the internet. Nothing... except that the application won't agree to be disembowled by cracking tools. I think this is legit.

yes, that's excellent and understandable, that you'd keep your own product safe, and i thank you for your quick reply. installation problem -- it sounds like just one of those video card/windows things after all, and something i can probably work out. it's very agreeable of ageod to not armor-plate the cd. i'll keep the game.

mike

[leb300]

Patch 1.09b seems to have solved the non-loading problem - at least for today. I have started, saved, quit and re-started four or five times with no problems encountered.
Thanks for your continuing efforts to resolve this problem.

[Pocus]

Thanks all... but ... I have not touched anything (but gameplay code!) on 1.09b compared to 1.09a.

The difference is that the executable is slightly different, and seems to be accepted by the anti-virus or security program usually blocking it. The affair is quite strange indeed. On which basis Windows (or one of the resident program) block or not block the game, this remains a mystery.