Vista - Civ4 is fine, but patch & BTS can't detect Civ4

Hello. I've been searching these forums and can't find the answer to the following...

I have a new system running Vista 32x, 2gb ram, quad 2.6mhz.
I installed Civ4, with no problems known (played for 30 minutes fine). The version is retail (CD), and is the original Civ4 from when the game first came out if not just a few months later.

Problem 1) When I try to install BtS, it starts install shield. It then checks and updates DirectX compenents. It then finds that there is a newer version of Civ4 available, and will be installed now... then 5-10 seconds later, the error "The patch failed to install! Aborting installation." When you hit "okay", the whole installation disappears and you're back at desktop.

Problem 2) If I try to update Civ4 from inside the game (it wants to go to patch 1.74 and skip 1.6), when you hit update, the download bar says 0/-1 bytes, 0%, and after 10 seconds tells you the patch failed to download.

Problem 3) If I download patch 1.61 from the Civ4 website, when I run it I get the following error. "The setup has detected that no version of Sid Meier's Civilization 4 is installed. This update requires that a previous version of the application be installed."

Also, since this is asked in all other threads, yes Civ 4 shows up in my control panel as a program I can uninstall.

What do I do to make the patch realize Civ4 is installed?



Thank you for any help.

welcome to cfc

did you do anything that might have changed the windows registry after installing Civ? e.g. installed/updated Vista or the like? also did you install Civ4 with administrator rights for the installer?

I did not do any updating after I installed Civ4. Vista has not been changed at all. As for Installing Civ4 with Administrator Rights...

I only have 1 user on my computer, and it is an administrator user. To install though, all I did was hit 'install'. I did not right click and select 'run as administrator' as I didn't even know about that until I had to do that with Ventrillo to get it to work properly.(Vent was already on before Civ4, so it was not installed after... it just wasn't working properly, but no changes were made to it, so it should not affect this). Do I have to uninstall and then reinstall by right clicking and hitting 'run as admin' on the setup file? Or should that not be needed when you are using an admin user?

Thanks.

in vista even as an admin user you need to run many program installers with explicit admin rights. Do the below, making sure that all installers/patch installers have admin rights. If you do not have warlords, ignore that part:


install the most recent version of DirectX 9c from Microsoft

then do the following for a clean reinstall:

Uninstall and Reinstall Civ4 Warlords BtS :

Try to follow this order when doing stuff:
Use Control panel to uninstall Beyond the Sword, then Warlords, then Civ4
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\my documents\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\sid meier's civilization 4" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\warlords" manually
Delete "...\documents and settings\<username>\local settings\application data\my games\beyond the sword" manually
(note: application data is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files, also these directories in application data are sometimes removed by the uninstall routine)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}" (Civ4)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{3E4B349F-10B5-4586-9D99-489A90A8B228}" (Warlords)
Delete "...\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}" (BtS)
(note: InstallShield Installation Information is a hidden directory so you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files).
Install Civ4, immediately patch it to 1.61 (download it fresh from here)
Install Warlords, immediately patch it to 2.08 (download it fresh from here)
Install Beyond the Sword, immediately patch to 3.17 (download it fresh from here).

(was on vacation last week, reason for late reply)

Today I uninstalled everything you said. I then reinstalled Civ4 by clicking on "setup.exe --> run as Administrator" from the install CD. It installed as normal, then when I tried to patch to 1.61, the exact same problem occurred as before. The patch still believes that Civ4 is not on the computer.

Note - When I install, I change the install path from the default to Program Files -> Games -> Civilization 4

Would renaming it from Sid Meier's Civilization 4 to Civilization 4 have any affect? Is there anything else to try?

Thanks for your continuing help.

now I have to check: this is civ4 and it is not one of the compilations - i.e. gold edition?

This is the original version of Civ4. I bought it a few months after the initial release. This is not a compilation. The US version.

have you tried the 1.74 patch?
this is puzzling...

I have not tried 1.74 yet. I did try the in-game update (which is to 1.74) after all else failed again. And again, it had the same error as in my original post. I have not downloaded 1.74 from a separate source though and tried. I have only tried from inside the game.

Definitely try a stand-alone patch. Their seem to be some definite issues with the in-game updater. And you are patching first to 1.61 and then 1.74? Or are you going straight to 1.74 from 1.00?

I have only tried the 1.61 patch. That is the one that does not detect Civ4 on the computer.

I can try the 1.7 patch to see what happens.



Is there a way to ensure that Civ4 is in my registry? I assume the patch checks the registry to find the game path... ?

well if you installed the game it should register - the easiest is to see if it is listed in the add/remove programs list in the windows control panel...

It is in the add/remove programs list. I don't know what else to do, maybe just give up on getting it to work on this computer. I'm good with computers, and I've done everything you've stated, exactly in the order you said, and it still has the exact same problem as stated initially. I hate to think it won't work on this, but if you guys are running out of ideas, I certainly don't know what else to do.

I don't understand how the game can run, show up in add/remove programs, and yet still the patch thinks the game is not installed. (BtS thinks it is not installed also).

If you think of anything else, let me know and I'll try it. Otherwise, thanks for the help and time. I know its hard to trouble shoot without seeing the system in front of you.

I know that gold edition had the problem that it registered under a wrong name so that bts could not find it (registering as patched to 1.72 instead of 1.74) maybe something is screwy in your registry - could you look for any registry keys that have firaxis or civilization in their name and post them here?

Hi, I have the same problem. I have Civ IV downloaded from best buy, now I downloaded Beyond the Sword from Direct 2 Drive. Bewyond the sword looks up a patch for civ IV before installing, fails, doesn't work. then I try and install either 1.61 or 1.72, none of them detect my Civ IV. I have vista premium 64 bit.

Welcome to CFC
You need to patch the game manually to 1.74 before installing BtS. The patch however needs to be provided by the vendor that sold you Civ4 (BestBuy) - since their versions is different from the normal retail version and the patches for the retail version won't work.

I too cannot install any updates. I downloaded the game from BestBuy.com as well.
I am just running the original 1.0 at the moment. I get the same error message, the patch cannot find the original version.

Bestbuy.com does not have any patches for Civ4 listed on their page.
http://store.digitalriver.com/store/bbygames/en_US/ContentTheme/pbPage.patchesCategory

return it - thats the best I can say - if they do not support it or tell you which of the gazillion digital patches to get they are not selling you the game in a usable way.
The problem is that the patches for the cd/dvd version will almost invariably fail and if they do install will start asking you to insert the correct cd rom anyway

Welcome to Civfanatics

thanks for your help
imma stick it to em!

Hello there. I, and upwards of 10's of people have had this same problem as Cxt. Could you tell me where I could find the registry keys so that I may share the wealth to all those on yahoo, google, and other places?

Perhaps if I simply uninstall and reinstall it then?