civ3 has caused major problems on my winXP machine

from WinCustomize Forums
this may seem off topic, but just wait for the details.

i have just purchased Civilisation 3. so i downloaded the latest patch 1.29f before installing it.

i installed the game earlier this evening on my home winXP pro machine, and then installed the patch before loading the game.

i then loaded the game for about 5 min, just to make sure it ran OK.

then i closed the game, and went on line.

this is where the problems started to show up. getright 4.5 now crashes when ever i try to start or resume a download.

i had the 4.5d patch in hand, so i installed that, and getright will no longer even load *STRESS*

on my first reboot after installing the game (20 minutes after install had finished, hoping this would fix the getright problem) Tab Launchpad gained 3 extra tabs. one was the tasks tab, and two were unwanted empty ones. i didn't do this, it just happened its self *MORE STRESS*

skinbrowswer crashes when i try to load it

Advanced System Agent now crashes on load (worked fine before)

Offline Explorer Pro has lost all details of the projects i was working on. *EVEN MORE STRESS*

i uninstalled the Civ3 patch, no difference.
i uninstalled Civ3, no difference.
i rebooted, no difference.

getting desperate, and VERY upset now, so i am off to try a system restore. any one got any suggestions on what to do at this point?
4,859 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
ewwwwwwww.... .....poor kitty.

Have some chocolate is the only suggestion I have.
You also have my sympathy.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
well, pressing the system restore button led me to discover that suddenly my machine thought it was 12:30am in June of 2051 !!!!!

however, following updating the system date time (back to reality) and a system restore to Tuesday just gone, skinbrowser, getright and ASA all now load

now off to see what else is still broken (nothing i hope).

however, there is NO WAY IN HELL i am putting civ3 back on my winXP machine! i do have a dual boot to win98, so i might try it over there.

in the mean time, if anyone would like to lay claim to system restore, i am prepared to kiss you to death!

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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
*sad sigh*

all the projects and setting i had in offline explorer look to be dead

i am going to try and get it to spot the files (since they are in its directory) but i am not totaly confident of success

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Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
feline...I have Civ3 on my XP machine...with no problems....but I haven't installed any patch/upgrade for it, so that 'may' be your problem.
Wasn't really my sort of game, but I DO like the intro....very kewl...
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
well, it is good to know that it does work in some places

after what happened to me, it is going to take a lot of convincing before i try it on winXP again.

i have been wondering why i bothered with a win98 dual boot, now i know

the only problem is finding room on the rather small win98 partition for this *sigh*
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sounds to me like the cause of all your problems was the date change. Having the wrong date can be very disruptive to any version of Windows.

Dumped my dual boot a month ago - XP works fine with newer games. Old ones can be dodgy. Total Annihilation works fine, Star Wars Racer does not...

As Koasati says, get some chocolate, you'll feel much better.

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Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
the date change seems to have also happened when the game installed

as for old games, civ3 is nice and new, and says it works fine on winXP.

i have given up with rogue squardron under XP though, and use 98 for that one.

the game not working i can accept, it is the game destorying several different programs that i cannot accept *sigh*
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
maybe Civilisation 3 is going to be an unfriendly time.... games finally turning on us! Maybe it has started already......

sorry about your lost programs /me tries to think of something to do to make you feel better.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
feline....I use drive caddies, with 2 of them with separate XP OS installs...a 'primary, principal one', and a test-bed one for 'doubtful' installs/use.
The advantage is that if I were to frag one OS I could be back up and running 'perfectly' in the other in about 2 minutes....my office/work data is on a third, fixed drive, so either can access it.

This is handy for trying out dodgey shells, etc...but in the case of Games, I haven't found one with any 'real' issues in XP, apart from Dos-based games, of course.
I managed to run GrandPrix 2 on XP....that's a Dos game, but dos-sound emulation [SB16] for a SB live card just wouldn't play nice with me,[I couldn't get it to work] and driving without sound was pretty hopeless...
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Jafo, I have had pretty good success running DOS games with sound using VDMSound. It supports XP (more so than the Win2k I'm on)

http://ntvdm.cjb.net/