Conquest Remnants Won't budge For Uninstallation

[T.A JONES]

Hi Im not stingy but was bored and installed free shareware for "Civ3 GOLD" and "Conqests" also. Receantly working away from home more often made me decide to bring my copy of Civ Complete with me.

Problem comes when I try to install Complete on the computer shareware was on. After fishing out all the old files of the same name Im still left with this:

The peculiar name of the file struck me as odd. Its titled: "Civ3 v1.22 Conquests Full" The error message persists: " file can not be found". when I attempt to delete from "Add/Remove Program" Whats puzzling is when I install "Complete" it reads: " Setup has detected an existing Civ3 or Civ3 Conquests installation". The install freezes after the PtW is placed 2nd in turn, finally coming to a rest on a Death animation file for the Spanish king unit Isabella half way through the total install process.

Please anyone? Is my computer forever banned from any Civ3 products because of this shady shareware? Or could it be my PtW disk took damage through shabby packaging over the years(no sleaves gives it apearence of slight surface damge where it was pressed up into the plastic shelf)

 

[Turner]

You might try this.

 

[T.A JONES]

Thanks for getting back so soon man. Bonus with my time constraits at the moment. link has things I can try but I don't see mention of shareware happy endings yet..

I am going to try a anivirus program aswell. I might get a hold of one later. The file in question might be trojan horse. I had firewall on but no antivirus installed

The trojan might explain why all files listed under ADD/ REMOVE menu are acounted for with folders exept this one. It might be embedded in Script somewhere (though I havn't familiarized myself enough with that area yet to make that kinda presumtion)

 

[Turner]

You might want to try someplace like Snapfiles or Download.com to find an add/remove program cleaner. They should have reg cleaners too.

 

[GVBN]

The peculiar name of the file struck me as odd. Its titled: "Civ3 v1.22 Conquests Full" The error message persists: " file can not be found". when I attempt to delete from "Add/Remove Program"

You can remove it manually by editing the registry.
The key is located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Whats puzzling is when I install "Complete" it reads: " Setup has detected an existing Civ3 or Civ3 Conquests installation".

Open the drive and look for a file called "Civilization III Complete Edition.msi"
Right-click on it and select "Repair"

 

[T.A JONES]

You might want to try someplace like Snapfiles or Download.com to find an add/remove program cleaner. They should have reg cleaners too.

Oh this is good to see! Thank you so much.

You can remove it manually by editing the registry.
The key is located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Uninstall

Open the drive and look for a file called "Civilization III Complete Edition.msi"
Right-click on it and select "Repair

Yes! Im happy (close to tears) and in a debt of grats to you both for raising my moral. THese directions are cut and dry. Im obliged to Again, say Thank you GVBN for taking a moment to assist.

THe straight forward answers here are going to plow me through this roadblock where otherwise, I woudna gone far without it. Again, the sharing of expertise here is most appreciated. I will try returning the favour by helping others in tribute of both your generosities.

 

[T.A JONES]

Update:
Ok I found a Atari File in the Registry an zapped it. I don't get the ALert! "Setup has detected an existing Civ3 or Civ3 Conquests installation" anymore. Thats progress. Thanks again!

The install still freezes after the PtW is placed 2nd in turn, finally coming to a rest on a Death animation file for the Spanish king unit Isabella half way through the total install process.

Open the drive and look for a file called "Civilization III Complete Edition.msi"
Right-click on it and select "Repair"

Says: " Program must be installed to repair file " How can I install it when it needs to be repaired for proper installation?

 

[GVBN]

Says: " Program must be installed to repair file " How can I install it when it needs to be repaired for proper installation?

Then you should be able to install it normally

Repair can be used when the game is not installed yet the installer thinks it is

 

[T.A JONES]

Then you should be able to install it normally

Repair can be used when the game is not installed yet the installer thinks it is

What if the Ptw Disk is physically damaged?

It always cuts out on the exact same file when Ptw (disk2) in in the middle of installing. I though a peice of evidece to bolster this theory would be to try extracting the files to my desktop.

Heres what happend.....PLease Refer to screen shot of PtW Disk contents below....Ah em, Any ideas this error could mean?. It happens after only 60% of the files are transfered. It hangs the same way it does in Instalation. This sadly looks like a incentive to buy Civ Chronicles AM I right anyone? Its so weird. PtW isn't even the play disk it just sits in its packaging. Like I said though, it has a ring around it outlining where its pressed in the flimsy storage case ( its also a few years old.)

 

[T.A JONES]

Heres another case the exact same where the exacting errors where occuring on brand new dics...so a new game will do the same.

I already owned civ3, but never had the expansions. it was cheaper to just buy the whole c3complete package so I did. I completely uninstalled the old civ3 including registry, but all Ive had is problems installing C3Complete. my 48x cd-rom has trouble reading the all 3 CD's of C3Complete and if I try and execute any files from the CD they come up as "corrupt" or "not valid win32." assuming it was a CD-rom error, I popped C3Complete into my external cd-writer . . . it was slow and choppy and barely loaded onto my computer. once it was loaded, the editors and game of PTW and conquests wouldnt work because a plethera of missing .pcx files errors came up. The uninstall feature wouldnt work either, so had to manually remove it. I went back to the shop and exchanged C3Complete for a new set, same problems, only this time my 48x read the CD but could only install up to CD3 where is couldnt read the disc. so I installed from the CD-writer again, same problems. atari told me sorry pal, sold "as is." whats the freekin problem, Im gettin pissed. no other CD's give me problems except for these C3Complete ones.
These are brand new discs, so whats the deal? anyone else having this problem? . . . so anyways I finally got it to install properly, I dunno what changed, but now the games work along wth the uninstall. maybe the Cd's needed breakng in, however that works,
Man, Ive never had ths much trouble installing a game ever

I don't have a seprate CD write drive and know idea where how the external one works or where it is, but thats how managed to get the Play the World files. Not the way I attepted that failed for him the same way.

I figured the problem was the expansion folders didnt have the orignal .pcx files, or the expansions .exe files werent programmed properly on where to look for them, cuz original civ3 worked, editor and all. so I copied the original art folder from civ3complete to some folder, call it "screw you atari", copied PTW art folder ontop of "screw you atari" art folder, replacing anything that had to be overwritten, and then replaced that new combioned art folder for the one in PTW and thus PTW worked, editor and all. did the same with conquests, only I first copied PTW over a copy of orignal civ3 art,"screw you atari 2", then a copy of conquests art folder over that combinbed one, again overwriting all files that prompted, and replaced the art folder in conquests with this new conglomerate copy ,and bingo, civ3complete works, comquests, PTW, and all, including editors. thanks for nothing atari.

Sumed up, a big copy n paste job.

Im going to try extracting dIsk 1(civ3 vannila) and 3(conquests) If those dont say "corrupt" I'll try to dload the PtW files and attept what did above.

 

[T.A JONES]

Update:Extracting Conquests data was interupted by the same " File is Corrupt " message I got before with PtW during extraction. CIv3 disk 1 went off witout a hitch. hmmm....

I think its safe to say both disks can't be corrupt or what I was worried most, damaged.
back to this similar case posted above, it reads:

The expansions .exe files werent programmed properly on where to look for them, cuz original civ3 worked, editor and all.

Its confirmed. Now I can move my attention away from the Best Buy (only civ3 available up here is Chronicles at 90 quid+ tax !). This is actually kinda fun in small doses. Ive got Civ3 out of my system now in more way then one. Im consumed now with solving this puzzle and learning the registry a bit more.

You should see all the leftovers hidden deep in there. Thats what slows your computer down. I will be getting a good scan and registry edit back home

Mybe even Faster turns times will result cuz of this dilema

 

[T.A JONES]

Yaaa! I found the culprit. After a few hours of scanning unknown entrys in my systems registry, I came apon this particular software called 'Securom'

I'm trying to backup Sid Meier's Railroads, and it looks like it has a very strong copy protection. It's protected with some version of Securom I could find no cure for

I've used Daemon Tools for a few years now and today I downloaded the latest version and enabled Securom emulation. Didn't work, so I tried that procyon.exe loader (I understand it's the same thing as Securom Loader?). The game kept asking to put the DVD in another drive which would be "easier to verify"; I disabled all other drives except the emulated one and it asked to use an original disk, not a backup...

This game is fairly new, I understand it was launched just this month, is there no solution to get a decent backup to work?

Please help if you can.

Once I ripped this cancer from the computer my install of dIsk1 one took certain steps in never did before like "cleaning out applications and other processes I would have noticed from watching it 100 time.

Looks like the cure wasn't so hard to find (only 8 hours atleast of pulling hair out )And this thread as confirmation

I hope this helps another someday. Remember the registry should be pulled of all Fireaxis product just to be sure.