Civ4 vanilla issue

I know that I just posted an issue on BtS but I managed to diagnose the problem more. Which might help you in offering assistance for those of us with this specific issue.

Apparently, BtS has nothing to do with the problem I am having, which I will now re-state:

I have had great trouble installing Civ4 1.0, but I have managed to do it after several hours of infuriating work.

Now that civ4 vanilla is installed, I am trying to install the patch 1.61 and patch 1.74

when I download the patches and choose to install them, the installshield progress bar reaches 2 bars (~6%) this image comes up:



If you can't see that image, the notification reads: "An Error (-5003: 0x5) has occurred while running the setup. Please make sure you have finished any previous setup and closed other applications. If the error still occurs, please contact your vendor: Firaxis Games. (##IDS_PRODUCT_URL##)."

This happened when installing patches 1.61 and 1.74

I have played the game before, owned it for a year, uninstalled it to make room for another game. And now when I reinstall, it does not work.

I have installed and reinstalled Civ4 about 15 times in the past 24 hours with the same results each time.


STATS:

Dell Inspiron 2200 Notebook (laptop that is capable of playing basic games, such as Civ4)
1.6 GHz
248 MB RAM (this has not effected gameplay in the past despite being below minimum requirements)
Direct X 9.0c
396 MB used, 209 MB available (with Civ4 already installed)
Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express graphics card driver (up-to-date)

I can play Civ4 without any patches but A) I don't want to, B) I have BtS and am eager to play it and C) I can not afford to buy another computer at this time, especially one devoted to gaming.

Please help soon,

2k Games has not returned any assistance in the past 16 hours.

This is the other image that shows up when I try to install the patches via BtS installation

If nobody is going to offer me any assistance then can u at least point me in the direction of where I might find some help?

old threads? anything?

from what I can c, this is a rather common problem and all of the threads asking for assistance seem to go unanswered.

i'm on the brink of just returning my game and giving up on civ4 completely just because i seem to be doing this all on my own.

2k games has ignored my question, nobody hear has even considered offering any advice and i am out of ideas. i spent the ENTIRE DAY trying to fix this problem and i've had it.

Any day now...

It seems that the installer thinks a previous install has not completed successfully. Possibly this is because you have uninstalled Civ4 and then reinstalled it again. It is probably worth completely uninstalling Civ4, rebooting and then trying the install again. NB. If there are any game saves etc you want to keep then copy then elsewhere before uninstalling.

To completely uninstall go through the normal uninstall process through Add/Remove in control panel. Delete the "C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games" folder (assuming that where you installed it), delete the "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4" folder if it is still there. Go into the registry (Start->Run->regedit) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software. If this is the only game you have from Firaxis delete the key called "Firaxis Games" otherwise delete any sub keys of Firaxis Games" starting with "Sid Meier's Civilization 4". Reboot , reinstall Civ4, reboot and try and install Civ4 BTS. With luck that will cure your problems (crosses fingers).

EDIT: I've just looked at your original BTS post and I'm a bit confused about the reference to disc 3. AFAIK vanilla was either one DVD or two CDs.

EDIT 2: Also delete the following folders if they exist:
"C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}"
"C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}"

thanks so much for the help

i'll try it shortly and get back to u on how it worked.

after reading what u wrote, it looks like i failed to delete the "Firaxis Games" folder and whatnot, which might have been a source of the problem

i am also updating my installshield program just to leave myself with very few possible errors

anyways, thank you again and i'll keep u posted on how it goes

EDIT
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The disk 3 problem - don't worry about it. It was because I accidentally created 2 versions of Civ4 on my computer and autorun was flipping out.

EDIT 2
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I'm also going to hit "Application Data" because there is a "Firaxis Games" folder located there also.

haha - is this strange or what?



Then the hypocrisy...




I thank you very much for your assistance Sam, it was able to bypass the "patch failed" problem and the game has installed successfully.

yet, what does this new error mean? i will edit this post shortly to update u on the progress....

thanks again, hopefully I won't need any more help like that (any time soon at least) **looks for lucky horseshoe**

...but stay posted if u can just in case my edit appears doubtful.

BTS used to install patch 3.02 initially and then they brought out 3.03. However 3.03 had problems because they built it from a bad code path. It's possible that they pulled 3.03 from their site but forgot to update the part that notifies the game that there is an update.

sorry for taking so long to reply...


all is well, game works perfectly, only had one graphics error which I managed to fix on my own.

i don't expect "brilliant" gameplay on my laptop, because it is a laptop but it will do. As long as I can play the complete game I am happy.

(a new gaming desktop is underway soon anyways, as early as late september or early november.)

alright thanks again Sam. you really helped me out.

EDIT 9:33AM
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Actually, as I can see that many players have this problem and there are likely to be many more as more BtS copies are sold, I propose that we either make this sticky or do something that will make it more easily accessible to those in need.