Civ 4 will not play

[jesusjohn78]

I have Civilization iv vanilla. I also have beyond the sword and warlords. All of which were installed on my computer and working fine. I didn't play them for about a year. When I went to play the game again it would not load. I double click on the icon for any of them and nothing happens. I tried to start the game from the disc and nothing happens. No error report either. I opened the task manager and watched the processes and tried starting the game again. I see the civilization4.exe pop up in the processes then I immediately see ~e5.0001 pop up in the processes and both process disappear.

I have completely wiped the system of all civ files as far as I could tell. Cleared the cache and all temp files. Searched and deleted any file I could find relating to civ. Then rebooted the computer and reinstalled civ 4 vanilla. Same problem again. I have been back and forth with 2kgames/fireaxis tech support and have received the run around. They have been absolutely no help.

I have even tried running msconfig and canceling all start up services then tried running civ. still same problem.

Since the last time the game started successfully I have installed a new video card, increased the ram, and switched from symantec corporate virus protection to Kasperskey. I have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.

Here are the specs for the computer:
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Dell Inc. Dimension 4700
2.80 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Bus Clock: 800 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. A05 11/23/2004
116.99 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
33.47 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 [Display adapter]
NEC E900+ [Monitor] (17.7"vis, s/n 9421015XD, April 1999)
2560 Megabytes Installed Memory


Please help!! I have no idea what to do and would really like to play civ again!


I disabled kasperskey. uninstalled civ. searched for every civ file I could find and deleted them. Went through the registry again and deleted every file i could find that I could tell was associated with civ. used ccleaner to clean up the registry after I was finished deleting registry entries. Rebooted the computer and reinstalled civ. still have same problem.

Just to test and see if it is the civ iv discs I installed civ 3. I have the exact same problem. It will not start. as I watch in the task manager the civ 3 program starts then immediately the ~e5.0001 pops up and the game terminates. Neither game ever even makes it to the splash screen

everything else works fine. I have unreal 2004 installed on the computer and it plays fine. The only program that has problems is the civ series.

 

[Furiey]

~e5.0001 is to to with the DRM on Civ 4 (and 3). It may be objecting to some virtual drives you have set up or something else it has decided you could use to circumvent the copy protection on the game. There are patches for Safedisc, but if that is causing the problem, the best thing to try may be installing Beyond the Sword (you say you have that as well) and patch 3.19 as that removes the DRM on Beyond the Sword so there should be no issues with that process. Unless you're playing multiplayer with someone who only has vanilla you'll probably want to be playing BTS anyway.