Info: Windows Vista and Windows Seven Installation

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by kgambit

Now that's strange. My old XP based machine died about 3 weeks ago. I managed to save the contents of the hard drive, including the full installations of the (free versions of) winSPMBT & winSPWW2 folders that were stored on a 32gb USB 2.0 flash drive.

Using a neighbor's Dell Windows Vista laptop, I can plug in that same flash drive and run both programs with no issues whatsoever in either windowed or full screen mode simply by launching the game either from the gameoptions.exe or directly from the {game].exe as opposed to a shortcut. Game launches, runs and exits perfectly. Shows 800x600, directX graphics indicator, windows vista or higher in game and either full or windowed options as selected. I've played scenarios and done some map editting without any seeming problems. Haven't made a single change to the winXP installation nor have I made any UAC control changes.

So my new windows 7 pro 64 bit system shows up a week ago. I reinstalled both games under windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I installed in a directory outside of the program files structure as recommended. I re-downloaded all the patches, double checked them for size against my previous versions. Repatched in sequence. Starting around v4.0 I started getting the program did not run successfully messages for patches for both games. I checked the progress of the game.exe files to make sure that the mod dates closely matched the patch dates and saw no obvious mismatches.

Both games seem to run fine in windowed mode at 800x600 when launched from desktop shortcuts.. Games Launch fine, close fine; restore desktop on exit, absolutely no issues. I can see the GDI graphics indicator on the game launcher.

However, the full screen mode does not properly restore the desktop when I exit. In fact, it totally wipes my desktop and I have to do a control alt delete and reboot the machine. I can see the CMD window flash briefly when the game starts and again when it shuts down.

Just to make sure it's clear, this happens for both games - winSPWW2 and winSPMBT. I just posted it here as I thought it might get more visibility.

Any suggestions here? Any particular files that I might check to see if they did NOT get fully or properly updated?

By the way, my native desktop resolution is 1920 x 1080 widescreen (16:9). Graphics card is a geForce 680 GTX.

I started getting the program did not run successfully messages for patches for both games.

That does not happen on my windows seven machine, so it is a point to be concerned about.

As to no desktop being restored - see point 2.2.2 of the original post about restarting windows explorer via task manager. You may need to use fully qualified paths to the windows functions in the batch file as described there too - that worked in my case when running it from a memory stick, rather than the C: drive.

Also see Imp's post above about setting up a desktop resolution change if playing the free game in 800x600 with a hotkey. (You could try manually setting the monitor to 800x600 as a quick experiment. If the desktop gets restored OK in 800x600 monitor mode then it may be for example, your graphics card or drivers having a hiccup with that resolution change from a batch file or whatever).

[kgambit]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

That does not happen on my windows seven machine, so it is a point to be concerned about.

As to no desktop being restored - see point 2.2.2 of the original post about restarting windows explorer via task manager. You may need to use fully qualified paths to the windows functions in the batch file as described there too - that worked in my case when running it from a memory stick, rather than the C: drive.

Also see Imp's post above about setting up a desktop resolution change if playing the free game in 800x600 with a hotkey. (You could try manually setting the monitor to 800x600 as a quick experiment. If the desktop gets restored OK in 800x600 monitor mode then it may be for example, your graphics card or drivers having a hiccup with that resolution change from a batch file or whatever) .

Andy, are you running the 32 bit or 64 bit version of windows 7?

Just for clarification on the patch failures:

IIRC the patch installation errors for winSPMBT started around the 4.0 version upgrades iirc, possibly the 3.5. sorry I don't remember exactly patch was the first to give me that error. Once the patch failures started every subsequent patch failed as well. i.e. with v 5.0, v 5.5 and v 6.0 and iirc v4.0 and v4.5 as well.

I going to uninstall and then redownload/reinstall winSPMBT from scratch.so I'll let you know if that problem re-occurs. If any of the patches fail to install properly I'll try re-installing running as admin to see if that works.

If it makes any difference, all of the game and patch files I've downloaded have come from the Shrapnel game site.

I actually had both games installed on my D drive. That's not a partitition but a physically separate 1 TB HD. Windows 7 Pro 64 is running on my SSD C: drive.

I'm running the english version but I'll double check the cmd as per 2.2.2 in the original post.

Resetting the desktop resolution to 800x600 and then running full screen for winSPMBT does not solve the problem. Still end up with a blank desktop after it exits.

WinSPMBT did uninstall using the uninstall.exe for me, but not WinSPWW2. Simply deleting the SPWW2 game folders did not remove telltale traces of the program. It's still showing up in the control panel I may need to clean the registry to get any tell trail traces of SPWW2 out. What are the registry key(s) for winSPWW2?

Thanks.
.................................................. ..

Dwight

[kgambit]

Don't need the registry locations for winSPWW2 after all. Got that sorted out.

Sorry for not just editing the previous post - for some reason I can't edit it now, even though I could previously.