First off, yes I looked around. I couldn't really find anything similar to my situation.
second, this is going to be drawn out. Its a rather long story.
The good bits, my computer.
XPS 210 (stop laughing)
vista basic
2 gigs of ram
2.3 Ghtz processor dual core.
ati X1300 g-card
and now, from the start. And, for the record, civ 4 ran fine for as long as I can remember. For those who don't like reading long paragraphs I summarized it at the bottom of the page. I just want to find a way to bring my beloved civ 4 back from the brink
Around the start of feburary my old graphics card died, and for some odd reason dell had me reinstall vista just to be absolutely sure it was really dead. I'm a college student, and as such I had the brilliant idea of only bringing as few CDs with me to college as possible, and certainly not anything elaborate like CD keys and older versions of games. So, I only had my civ 4 BTS cd with me. Rather than doing the smart thing and simply getting all my CDs up to college, I took the lazy way out and got my friend's steam account loaned to me so that I could just run his copy of Civ off my computer when I felt up to playing it.
Well, its spring break now, and I have my CDs with me. So I uninstalled the local files for steam's version of civ 4, and proceeded to install my own copy. Civ 4 installed fine, so I went to install BTS and I obviously wasn't paying much attention because an error message flashed on my screen and I disregarded it because BTS continued installing anyways. When it finished....it just didn't work. I'd hear the CD drive speed up...and stop....then speed up....and stop. This'd continue for a few minutes until the stupid computer just coughed up a "Please insert the correct disc" message. Right. So I tried regular civ 4. No dice, same problem. Looking around online I deduced I should probably have updated civ 4 first, and then installed BTS, so I decided to just start from scratch and reinstall the whole thing.
Now, I usually play blizzard games, so when I look for that nifty uninstall option I look in the program files. Upon not seeing one the thought crossed my mind that firaxis is a bad company who just wants to screw us all, and immediately mashed the "delete" button. Not soon after the firaxis gods proceeded to smite my computer, and make vista more turdy than it already was. Yes, its a word. It was a few minutes after the fact that I realized that was an incredibly dumb thing to do. First I noticed that the computer didn't notice that little detail at all- when I'd insert the disc again it'd just say "play / readme / exit." So I decided to do something really high brow- I purged civ 4 from the computer's registry. Then I got "install / readme / exit" but when I'd start installing it got the idea that I was installing version 1.66, and the version that was on my computer is 1.7. Now, my CD might have 1.66, but the computer certainly doesn't have 1.7. Or anything for that matter. At that point I was delightfully tired, so I called it a night. After peeking around on the forums for a second time I decided to remove any relevent files from my games folder under the user's tab. Of course, this didn't work, so for good measure I ran a search on my computer for anything with "civ 4" "BTS" or "firaxis" in it's name for good measure, and deleted it all.
Right around this time I noticed that nifty little "Add / Remove program" option from the control panel, and amazingly enough civ 4 and BTS were still on the list. Amazed, I proceeded to remove BTS with no problem, but when I went to remove civ 4 it gave me a delightful little "An error (-5004: 0x80041f42) has occured while running the setup." error message.
Now, I realize I've basically screwed the pooch on this, but is there any way to bring civ back from the brink? Have I offended the firaxis gods too much?
(for those who do not enjoy walls of text)
-reinstalled vista
-installed steam version of CIV 4 + BTS
-uninstalled CIV 4 + BTS
-Installed CD version of CIV 4 + BTS
-Error occured while installed BTS, but it proceeded anyways
-after installation both Civ4 and BTS wouldn't work- after the cd drive sped up and then slowed to a stop several times the computer would ask me to insert the correct CD.
-Deleted civ 4 folder from the programs list on the hard drive
-purged civ 4 from registry
-deleted all relevant files from the games sub folder of the users tab.
-having noticed it, used the add/remove programs program to remove BTS, will not remove CIV 4.
-civ 4 will not install, citing an out dated version (1.66) trying to be installed versus the more up-to-date (1.7) being in place on the computer.
oh, and I'm prepared to love anyone who can come up with a solution long time.
second, this is going to be drawn out. Its a rather long story.
The good bits, my computer.
XPS 210 (stop laughing)
vista basic
2 gigs of ram
2.3 Ghtz processor dual core.
ati X1300 g-card
and now, from the start. And, for the record, civ 4 ran fine for as long as I can remember. For those who don't like reading long paragraphs I summarized it at the bottom of the page. I just want to find a way to bring my beloved civ 4 back from the brink
Around the start of feburary my old graphics card died, and for some odd reason dell had me reinstall vista just to be absolutely sure it was really dead. I'm a college student, and as such I had the brilliant idea of only bringing as few CDs with me to college as possible, and certainly not anything elaborate like CD keys and older versions of games. So, I only had my civ 4 BTS cd with me. Rather than doing the smart thing and simply getting all my CDs up to college, I took the lazy way out and got my friend's steam account loaned to me so that I could just run his copy of Civ off my computer when I felt up to playing it.
Well, its spring break now, and I have my CDs with me. So I uninstalled the local files for steam's version of civ 4, and proceeded to install my own copy. Civ 4 installed fine, so I went to install BTS and I obviously wasn't paying much attention because an error message flashed on my screen and I disregarded it because BTS continued installing anyways. When it finished....it just didn't work. I'd hear the CD drive speed up...and stop....then speed up....and stop. This'd continue for a few minutes until the stupid computer just coughed up a "Please insert the correct disc" message. Right. So I tried regular civ 4. No dice, same problem. Looking around online I deduced I should probably have updated civ 4 first, and then installed BTS, so I decided to just start from scratch and reinstall the whole thing.
Now, I usually play blizzard games, so when I look for that nifty uninstall option I look in the program files. Upon not seeing one the thought crossed my mind that firaxis is a bad company who just wants to screw us all, and immediately mashed the "delete" button. Not soon after the firaxis gods proceeded to smite my computer, and make vista more turdy than it already was. Yes, its a word. It was a few minutes after the fact that I realized that was an incredibly dumb thing to do. First I noticed that the computer didn't notice that little detail at all- when I'd insert the disc again it'd just say "play / readme / exit." So I decided to do something really high brow- I purged civ 4 from the computer's registry. Then I got "install / readme / exit" but when I'd start installing it got the idea that I was installing version 1.66, and the version that was on my computer is 1.7. Now, my CD might have 1.66, but the computer certainly doesn't have 1.7. Or anything for that matter. At that point I was delightfully tired, so I called it a night. After peeking around on the forums for a second time I decided to remove any relevent files from my games folder under the user's tab. Of course, this didn't work, so for good measure I ran a search on my computer for anything with "civ 4" "BTS" or "firaxis" in it's name for good measure, and deleted it all.
Right around this time I noticed that nifty little "Add / Remove program" option from the control panel, and amazingly enough civ 4 and BTS were still on the list. Amazed, I proceeded to remove BTS with no problem, but when I went to remove civ 4 it gave me a delightful little "An error (-5004: 0x80041f42) has occured while running the setup." error message.
Now, I realize I've basically screwed the pooch on this, but is there any way to bring civ back from the brink? Have I offended the firaxis gods too much?
(for those who do not enjoy walls of text)
-reinstalled vista
-installed steam version of CIV 4 + BTS
-uninstalled CIV 4 + BTS
-Installed CD version of CIV 4 + BTS
-Error occured while installed BTS, but it proceeded anyways
-after installation both Civ4 and BTS wouldn't work- after the cd drive sped up and then slowed to a stop several times the computer would ask me to insert the correct CD.
-Deleted civ 4 folder from the programs list on the hard drive
-purged civ 4 from registry
-deleted all relevant files from the games sub folder of the users tab.
-having noticed it, used the add/remove programs program to remove BTS, will not remove CIV 4.
-civ 4 will not install, citing an out dated version (1.66) trying to be installed versus the more up-to-date (1.7) being in place on the computer.
oh, and I'm prepared to love anyone who can come up with a solution long time.
