Civilization IV Complete installation on Windows 7

[persiflage]

I'm having a nightmare.

Version: Civilization Complete, 2k Games, including Warlords and Beyond the Sword
Windows 7 Starter 2009, Service Pack 1

I have no CD drive so I made an ISO file using MagicISO on a friend's machine and copied it to my pc. I then mounted it and ran setup.exe as administrator.

The installation seems to complete, but there is no desktop icon, and the start menu doesn't register any new installation. Also, the game is not listed in add/remove programs.

If I try to run the game, I get the standard "Initialize renderer failed..." message. If I try to run either of the 1.61 or 1.74 patches I get the error saying that "Setup has detected that no version of Sid Meier's Civilization 4 is installed...".

I have checked my graphics drivers and they seem to be up-to-date.

Can anyone help please?

Thanks.

 

[mintegar]

I think the problem is either that this edition comes with some copy protection that the ISO Software you are using is not good enough to fool, or maybe there is some issue with running civ4 on win7-Starter edition. What are the limitations on that Starter Edition, and why on earth are you using that thing?

There are multiple things you can do / try. First i'd check if the game works in principle by installing it on your friends machine. If that works.. well easiest would of course be to just borrow the DVD drive.

 

[persiflage]

I must say I think this is unlikely to be the problem simply because so many other people have had exactly the same problem installing direct from the DVD.

I have now successfully installed the 3.17 patch, but the running the game I still get the "Initialize Renderer failed" error, which seems to be something to do with graphics.

UPDATE: I think my problem is that my graphics card doesn't support the resolution that the game is trying to use. It's a netbook which uses 800 x 600 or 1024 x 600. The game seems to be trying to use 1024 x 768. I have tried editing the config file to change the width and height values, but I get the same error, ie the game still wants to use 1024 x 768. Any thoughts?

SOLVED: I changed the fullscreen value from 1 to 0 and it works. HTH someone.