Ack! Vista killed my Civ IV mojo!

[ChromiumL]

So, just got a new laptop (yay) and am having problems loading up Civ IV on vista (boo).

Here's my story (I don't mean to be over-long here, but I know tech-folk like lots of details--though the details I am adding probably aren't the right ones!):

1. Bought a laptop (Dell Studio XPS 1340), updated all drivers.
2. Read Lemon's fabulous guide for installing Civ IV onto Vista to prep myself for what I suspected to be a delicate process.
3. Inserted Vanilla disk 1, did the whole run as administrator thingy.
4. In the middle of installation it just crashed, so rebooted, and started again. Next time things went smoothly. Updated Vanilla to 1.61.
5. Maybe I should have paused here to see if that worked, but I decided to go all the way as I can't bear seeing my poor Civ IV in non-BTS form.
6. Installed Warlords, updated to 2.08. No problems.
7. Worked on installing BTS. It crashed a few times, but then I realized that I think the reason it was crashing was because the computer was going into power-save mode or something (maybe?). All I know is that when I sat there and played hearts as it was installing, everything went perfectly fine.
8. Updated to BTS 3.17 then BTS 3.19... no problems
9. Finally, the moment of truth, I go to run BTS (as administrator) looks like things are going well... then BOOM... XML Load Error that says the following:

Failed loading XML file xml/globaldefinesalt.xml. [./fxml.cpp;133]
Error parsing XML file - xml/globaldefinesalt.xml
reasons - XML document must have a top level element.

I continue to get a few errors that basically say the same thing. I click through then...

WTH, it just worked... at least for Warlords (I decided to trouble-shoot as I was writing this post to see if it was just BTS). Apparently just typing to techy people helps solve problems .

Ok, well, continuing on (I wouldn't be posting this if that were the end of my story)...

So, I go and pop in the BTS CD, cancel out of the auto-run thing and run as administrator, it gets past the place where it was having the XML error (which has apparently decided to go away after I told on it)... I hold my breath... a black screen comes up and... it stays black... and stays black... there's a load error that says: GFC Error: failed to initialize the primary control theme.

Bummer right??

I've tried running in XP compatibility mode, and no luck there either.

I don't know if this matters, but whenever the black screen initializes there is this weird dull clunk noise...

Anyways, I double checked and Vanilla and Warlords both seem to work fine now (I loaded up some maps and everything).

Do any tech-folks out there have any clue what else I should try to get BTS working?

 

[ori]

sounds like a corrupted installation of some sorts - the crashing during install certainly didn't help...
is there a my games\beyond the sword folder? it would be created during startup - but I don't know if it got far enough... if it did and the civilizationIV.ini in there was also created please open that and set all items with log in their name from 0 to 1 and then start and crash the game and afterwards post all items in my games\beyond the sword\logs as a zip file attachment.

 

[Zylornck Davis]

My suggestion would be to uninstall BTS completely and start over. before you do that start a game of vanilla civ and make sure that works. Then install BTS again and add the patches. It sound like one or more of the xml files got screwed up during the install or patching process.

A couple tips for laptop installation - make sure the thing is plugged in to AC power and not running on a power saver mode when you do it. And don't do anything else like running another program while youre doing an install. Its just asking vista to screw something up for you. Live with the boredom man.

And I'll pass on number 2 in your post to Lemon when I see her. She loves the word fabulous and you probly made her day.

 

[ChromiumL]

So, I looked for the CivilizationIV.ini and didn't see it. Musta screwed up the install somehow from all those crashes. I went ahead and uninstalled BTS, and tried to re-install it. Laptop is plugged in and on 'high performance' settings. It crashed every single time (I tried probably 6-10 times) I tried to install BTS.

Vanilla and Warlords both work fine. Do I need to uninstall everything and start from scratch?

Thanks!

 

[ori]

what does crashing mean? is there an error report?

 

[ChromiumL]

No error report--the computer just totally freezes and I have to hard reboot (by pushing the power button). Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't respond at all. It sometimes even freezes in the 'checking for direct x/other updates stages'.

 

[ori]

could you please open the windows event manager and look for any error messages around this time?

 

[ChromiumL]

I'm not 'exactly' sure what I am looking for, but I think the important one is something that says that:

Log Name: Security
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Eventlog
Date: 8/13/2009 10:27:44 AM
Event ID: 1101
Task Category: Event processing
Level: Error
Keywords: Audit Success
User: N/A
Computer: Layla-PC
Description:
Audit events have been dropped by the transport. The real time backup file was corrupt due to improper shutdown.

Of course, I improperly shut down because the computer had crashed... grr...

On a weird side note, the two times I just tried almost made it to the end before crashing...

I'm going to experiment to see if I can get it to completely install again.

 

[ori]

anything just before that one? like in the few minutes before? especially in the application logs section...

 

[ChromiumL]

I finally got it to install again and am having the same issue... found the Civilization4.ini thing and a zip of all the logs is attached.

I probably should have taken a closer look at the logs before I kept trying to install it. I really couldn't see anything of note, but its hard to say since even when I cleared them out before crashing there would be 30ish in there.

Another weird note--I tried booting it up before installing the updates and the game didn't accept either of the CD's as the correct play disk (And yes, its a totally legal copy). After the updates, that seemed to fix itself...

 

[ori]

did you run it as administrator? right click and choose run as admin?
the logs unfortunately don't say anything about why it dies

 

[ChromiumL]

Bah Humbug!

Yeah, I am using the run as Admin thingy... I just keep getting the GFC Error: Failed to initialize the primary control theme error when it freezes on the loading screen.

Maybe I will just install my old copy of XP... Sorta a bummer cause I could get to like Vista

Thanks a lot for trying to help--I definitely appreciate it!

 

[ChromiumL]

Wow,

I decided to try to install BTS one last time, and it went through (without crashing) and now runs fine after I click through one little XML error...

Sometimes I truly do believe computers are alive... Vista was scared of loosing its life (being uninstalled) so it finally decided to stop being stubborn and actually work...