Civ4 vs. Windows 10 -- weirdness

[Koala1]

Two years ago, I installed the Civ4 family to Windows 7 by following the excellent instructions from kiwitt (posted here, I/19/2011); worked fine. Last July I accepted the free "upgrade" to Windows 10 (hey, Windows 7 is now "obsolete", and won't be supported some day, so why not? Gahh!).

Now when I invoke any of the 3 Civ4 versions (basic, Warlords, BtS) I'm asked if I'm willing to let the program modify my computer. I click "yes", and the weirdness begins -- for Civ4 and Warlords nothing happens, while BtS loads as usual (although my CD drive can have any CD or even be empty).

So:
- Should I uninstall my current Civ4 programs and re-install directly to Windows 10
following kiwitt's instructions again?
- I'm currently using patches
Civ4) 1.61, 1.74Final...Warlords) 2.08, 2.13...BtS) 3.17e, 3.19
Are there any later patches?
- Is there some simple way that I can revert to Windows 7, now that Microsoft's
one-month period to do so easily has expired?
- If there's a techie out there who knows a fix for this: HELP!

 

[Seraiel]

I think the problem is, that the driver, needed to read through the copy-protection of your CIV-CDs simply isn't supported anymore by Win 10 (it's name is securedrv.sys or similar, should you have a service with a similar name, enable it, but I think Win 8.1 is the last Win that has it) . If you were wise and have the Win 10 Pro version, downgrading also shouldn't be a problem, because all Pro versions have downgrade-rights for their lifetime iirc.
If you have the Home version, the only things I can think of are buying an online-download-version of CIV or (cheaper and better but maybe more complicated) try one of the DVD-versions of CIV, the last afaik have a different copy-protection and should work in Win 10 aswell, I haven't tested that though, but you can find info on that in this forum.
The patch-versions of CIV you list are the last available, because the HoF lists them as the most current.

 

[Verrucosus]

Two questions:

1) You say that you switched back in July. Did the problem with Civ4 and Warlords occur the first time you tried to run them after the switch or was there a period when they worked like before?

2) Does the problem occur when you start the games while your computer is connected to the internet?

 

[vincentz]

I'm not much for suggesting, but since you have the CD, maybe try a nocd exe for vanilla and warlords.
They removed the CD check in bts 3.19 which is why it runs normally and iirc civ complete have no CD check for both vanilla, warlords and bts (need confirmation on this)

 

[leif erikson]

Please see this thread for an explanation of the problem and how to work around it.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Last July I accepted the free "upgrade" to Windows 10 (hey, Windows 7 is now "obsolete", and won't be supported some day, so why not? Gahh!).

Why not?

From my understanding, Win 7 won't be obsolete until after January 2020, after which time there won't be any further Security Updates being released. Until then, it won't be obsolete.

Win 10 means learning a new interface to do the same things that we've been doing all along, but more importantly, means our personal information being abused and sold to over 130 companies. Give us clear methods to opt-out, with opting-out being the default, and PAY US a portion of the revenue obtained from selling our own personal information if you want to make user-friendly software. Let that lesson be one to be followed by all future software developers.

- I'm currently using patches
Civ4) 1.61, 1.74Final...Warlords) 2.08, 2.13...BtS) 3.17e, 3.19
Are there any later patches?

The latest Civ 4 patches are:
Vanilla: 1.74
Warlords: 2.13
BtS: 3.19

Using my individually-purchased DVDs for each expansion, installing Vanilla, then Warlords, then BtS all in a row will give me the latest Vanilla and Warlords patches. I then need to manually install the Civ4BeyondTheSwordPatch3.19.exe file.

There shouldn't be a need to incrementally install patches for a given expansion. For example, you shouldn't need to use the 2.08 patch, unless you have some old saved game that you want to load, but then you'd need to do so in a Civ 4 installation that wasn't upgraded to 2.13. Barring that possible rare exception, you shouldn't need to use the 2.08 patch file anymore.

- Is there some simple way that I can revert to Windows 7, now that Microsoft's
one-month period to do so easily has expired?

I have heard that one can pay to upgrade Win 10 Home to Win 10 Pro, which might be the way to go if you're the average user who was caught with their pants down by Microsoft not automatically creating and allowing you to permanently save a Win 7 or Win 8.1 image of your computer's data for you to restore. That way, you will apparently have the "downgrade right" option that Seraiel mentions, to downgrade to either Win 7 or Win 8.1.

 

[Koala1]

Thanks for the responses to my original post.

To Verrucosus: Civ4 and BtS never worked under Windows 10, nor did I ever try to run them while connected to the Internet. As far as I can tell, the problem lies elsewhere (see the response from Leif Erikson).

To Leif Erikson: This looks really promising, and I'll try it tomorrow. Judging from the follow-ups to your response, it looks like you've nailed it. Thanks!!

 

[isenchine]

I've read the link that Leif provided and the OP, DynamicSpirit, says in post #4 of the thread that:

I don't have Windows 10, but I understand from people who do that this fix won't work on Windows 10 (There is a way to fix it on Windows 10, but it's more complicated).

As long as that "more complicated fix" is not explained, the fix available does not work for Windows 10 as the secdrv was never part of the installation of Win 10 in the first place.

 

[Verrucosus]

Secdrv missing under Windows 10 is the most likely cause of the problem. Windows 7 users usually get a confusing error message relating to administrator rights, but maybe that's different under Windows 10 where secdrv is not just disabled, but simply missing.

The question about the internet connection was meant to rule out a different and rarer problem related to the Windows Games Explorer and the file rundll32.exe. The symptoms are similar to the ones your describe (game just doesn't start, no error message, BtS not affected), but they only show when you try to start the game without being connected to the internet. (A different way to test for this problem would be to open the task manager after the failed launch and check whether Civilization4.exe is listed as a process.)

Again, secdrv.sys is the more likely suspect and I have not seen a solution for Windows 10 yet. Please post if you get it to run, because lots of people will be interested.

 

[Koala1]

I followed the instructions in the linked post provided by Leif Erikson. Once I got to the command prompt window, this ensued:

{I typed} sc config secdrv start= demand
After I hit Enter, I got: [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS
{I then typed} sc start secdrv
After I hit Enter, I got: [SC] StartService FAILED 1275:
{plus the line} This driver has been blocked from loading

To call this frustrating is a gross understatement. Other than practicing primal scream therapy, does anyone have any advice?

 

[Seraiel]

Why not?

From my understanding, Win 7 won't be obsolete until after January 2020, after which time there won't be any further Security Updates being released. Until then, it won't be obsolete.

Win 10 means learning a new interface to do the same things that we've been doing all along, but more importantly, means our personal information being abused and sold to over 130 companies. Give us clear methods to opt-out, with opting-out being the default, and PAY US a portion of the revenue obtained from selling our own personal information if you want to make user-friendly software. Let that lesson be one to be followed by all future software developers.


I have heard that one can pay to upgrade Win 10 Home to Win 10 Pro, which might be the way to go if you're the average user who was caught with their pants down by Microsoft not automatically creating and allowing you to permanently save a Win 7 or Win 8.1 image of your computer's data for you to restore. That way, you will apparently have the "downgrade right" option that Seraiel mentions, to downgrade to either Win 7 or Win 8.1.

Win 10 is just a virus and a joke. Forced driver-updates and forced Windows Updates unless having the PRO version, LOL LOL LOL. 4h work / month, because one of those screwed the system, no thx. Even with disabling all the inacceptable telemetry via Programs like O&O Shut Up or Destroy Windows Spying (DWS) which I heavily advice every Win 10 user to know and use (!!!) , Windows 10 is slows down the CPU significantly, because it's horribly optimized currently, and Windows 7 also uses less resources again making it faster and better, and there's nothing that can be done in Win 10 that can't be done in Win 7 but there are several things that can't be done in Win 10 but work in Win 7.

In all seriousness, but everybody running Win 10 either has a Samsung PCIe SSD that forces him to use it, or, if he had a choice, he simply made the wrong one. Win 7 is the new Windows XP and it'll be better than Win 10 for the next several years. If downgrading is still possible, do it, it's always possible if you have the PRO version. If you have the home-version, are over the 1 month limit and didn't save the $BT_xyz folders, my condolensces. Maybe upgrade to Pro and downgrade then (shouldn't be very expensive) .

 

[Ramkhamhaeng]

I followed the instructions in the linked post provided by Leif Erikson. Once I got to the command prompt window, this ensued:
[...]

As Post #8 and #9 explain this is useless on Win10. On Win7 MS disable the loading of this driver and you can enable it by hand. On Win10 you can not load this driver. It simply does not exists.

The big question for you should be: Why can I not start BTS 3.19. Did I has patched correctly? The 3.19-Version has no CD-copy protection and the above error can not occur!



A linux/wine user

 

[Seraiel]

I heard 3.19 is np.

The idea with a no-CD crack btw. is good, because I'm almost 99.9% sure, that using them is legal, if owning the game, which is, why they still can be offered on the same sites (i. e. GCW) and why those sites can't get sued and closed.

 

[Koala1]

I phoned my local Microsoft store and after a number of call transfers (and heavy Indian accents) I was told the following: Windows 10 Pro does NOT allow reversion to Windows 7 once the initial 30 day period ends; the only way to get back to Windows 7 is to reload it from CD.

I have no idea if this is really true (a number of you have said differently), but I'll accept it for now. I've had all the fun I can stand with this...

 

[Seraiel]

I phoned my local Microsoft store and after a number of call transfers (and heavy Indian accents) I was told the following: Windows 10 Pro does NOT allow reversion to Windows 7 once the initial 30 day period ends; the only way to get back to Windows 7 is to reload it from CD.

I have no idea if this is really true (a number of you have said differently), but I'll accept it for now. I've had all the fun I can stand with this...

When I wrote that downgrade is allowed, I didn't mean, that you can downgrade from Win 10 to Win 7 without newly installing the OS. Everytime you change the OS, you should cleanly install it anyhow, because everything else is just suboptimal, because the upgrade-process just doesn't work properly, neither would a downgrade process work properly, if you'd use those, you'd lose a lot of performance and also start with a system that'll have errors that it wouldn't have when installing cleanly.

Therefore: If new OS, always clean install.

Be thankful, that Win 10 Pro at least allows you to insert the Win 7 CD and by that downgrade. Afaik, Win 10 Home users aren't granted that right, if they are past the 30d, their Win 7 licence ultimately becomes a Win 10 only licence, while having the Pro version, one is allowed to use any older OS, so also 8.1, it's just that 7 is also better than 8.1. And I'm not 100% sure, but I believe, that if you upgraded to Win 10 and have the Pro version, you now own a Win 7 + 8.1 + 10 license, which would even allow you to upgrade past the 1y free upgrade time. Things like that are why I advise all my friends to always take at least the Pro version, it may cost only 20$ more, but the advantages are immense.