Patch 1.74 WTH!?!?!

[Michael Alan]

YIKES! I had no idea. I got one possible solution, maybe if can take it back to Wal-Mart with my reciept and get the Civ 4-Warlords combo pack and pay the $10 difference. Might that help?

 

[ori]

YIKES! I had no idea. I got one possible solution, maybe if can take it back to Wal-Mart with my reciept and get the Civ 4-Warlords combo pack and pay the $10 difference. Might that help?

There are issues with Gold edition which you do not run into with Vanilla/Warlords (basically Gold Edition was for reasons probably not even known for Sid himself designed in a way that it should be complete, i.e. without any add-ons necessary which is a move in itself. Now of course some people did have issues with Vanilla/Warlords as well but most have two sources:
Either its the download version of one and the CD version of the other (which has similar issues as Gold and BtS) or its Windows Vista which screws with some permissions settings...
All said Vanilla/Warlords is probably less problematic and since you experience bugs you might indeed fare better with it. Of course as with all PC Games there is no absolute guarantee that there will be no flaws on your particular machine

 

[Michael Alan]

Thanks Ori - perhaps it is such an issue. I will try to exchange it either for Vanilla/Warlords or just a non-Gold version but I don't recall seeing many of those (non-Gold without Warlords) at the store. Either one is probably better than Gold. I'll try for the Vanilla/Warlords if it is in stock and I can find my reciept. Im on an XP so the Vista situation is avoided.
I will come back here in a day or so with what happens if you happen to be around.
Don't worry if it backfires I wont blame you.
Thats some complex stuff. Fun game though.
I was up til 2:45 AM playing last night
sheesh

 

[ori]

I was up til 2:45 AM playing last night
sheesh

Good luck and:
...one more turn...

 

[Michael Alan]

Ori
I messed up, I have "Game Of The Year" edition, not Gold. I knew it was something .
I looked at the dates on the boxes, you are right, Gold is newer, it says 2005-2007, Game Of The Year says 2006. So that would explain why BTS had no hang ups when I installed it other than that Civ 1.74 patch error message and the uninstall issue.
Also the Gold version was the one I had seen that came with Warlords.
I dont need Warlords however, I just thought it might help to buy the other (that is if I had remembered everything correctly)
I played the Vanilla 1.61 version more today and last night, it plays perfectly to me, no crashes, (one time I loaded a WWII mod and then changed the screen resolution to the max while in game and it crashed)
In Civ 4 on the Terra senerio I got up to modern times, only 70 years or so left in game play it says in the upper right, and a whole new continent became visible I hadn't seen before but apparently other nations knew of it before me cuz they have primitive settlements there, boy I have a lot of gaming questions now LOL Im trying to take a settler to it in an air transport but it doesnt seem to work, maybe I need a scout with me, the land area is all dimmed out, unexplored by me.

One more turn....ha ha
I got two PC addictions now, processing photos on my PC with Paint Shop Pro XI and Civ 4
They can make me late for bed and for work.....gotta keep tabs on that.

But to the point of this conversation.
You may have guesses you have not said yet as to what might help.
If you are tapped for suggestions, maybe I should be happy Vanilla works on my PC, some dont get that to work even!
I heard 1.74 patch doesn't change much of significance but it is needed for BTS which I already bought. Soooo Maybe this: just play Vanilla 1.61 version for a few weeks, get familiar with the game, watch for bugs, adjust common stuff like graphics settings if something doesn't play right, and if all goes well then I will have a reference point to compare to when I install 1.74 version and BTS. If any problems popped up I'd see them better then. If it plays the same as before (bug wise) then I could rest in peace that the Error message was no big deal probably. I could always go back to v 1.61.
But I'm open to any better technical experince you might have.

 

[Michael Alan]

I didnt see any Vanilla/Warlords (combo pack) other than Gold.
Is there one?

 

[ori]

I didnt see any Vanilla/Warlords (combo pack) other than Gold.
Is there one?

No - I meant Vanilla and Warlords (as separate games) when I wrote Vanilla/Warlords.
If I understand you correctly the game does start ok and you can use it without any problems when patching? If that is the case I would probably just leave it at that and ignore the error. the patch apparently looks for something it wants to install and cannot find it - what that is is hard to say if it just says 1706 error since that just tells us that it tries to install something and cannot read the source...
BtS did install ok as well?

 

[Michael Alan]

Yes BTS installed fine and begins play fine. BTS also uninstalls fine from Add Remove Programs. The only initially noticable problem is you can't uninstall Vanilla Civ in the proper Add Remove Programs manner once you apply the 1.74 patch. It is possible Vanilla won't uninstall from Add Remove Programs in its 1.61 version either but I never tried that.

 

[ori]

Yes BTS installed fine and begins play fine. BTS also uninstalls fine from Add Remove Programs. The only initially noticable problem is you can't uninstall Vanilla Civ in the proper Add Remove Programs manner once you apply the 1.74 patch. It is possible Vanilla won't uninstall from Add Remove Programs in its 1.61 version either but I never tried that.

While this is a pain, I am not sure I know how to fix that and in any case a fix would probably involve editing the registry and that is never a good idea if you do not know exactly what you are doing. So I'd ignore that probably...

 

[Michael Alan]

Thanks Ori, I will probably take that advice. An admin on Apolyton.net/Civ4 forum said the same as you. The only fix I found by searching the two forums for the 1706 error was a guy who offered a whole notepad page of registry edits when the error popped up with the 1.09 patch. Sounds extreme though and I'm not in the mood to wipe out my hard drive today yet again if it goes bad.

Cheers!
Now if I can only figure out why my Civ city has so many unhappy people due to "overpopulation" when i give them all the food and culture I can muster.

 

[ori]

Cheers!
Now if I can only figure out why my Civ city has so many unhappy people due to "overpopulation" when i give them all the food and culture I can muster.

Read Cabert's Ways into Happiness

 

[GVBN]

Thanks Ori, I will probably take that advice. An admin on Apolyton.net/Civ4 forum said the same as you. The only fix I found by searching the two forums for the 1706 error was a guy who offered a whole notepad page of registry edits when the error popped up with the 1.09 patch. Sounds extreme though and I'm not in the mood to wipe out my hard drive today yet again if it goes bad.

Speaking of notepad, you can actually remove all Civ4 registry entries without using the registry editor. Simply create a new text document, add the following lines and rename it from .txt to .reg. Then simply double-click it and it will remove all the entries

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Firaxis Games]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{CFBCE791-2D53-4FCE-B3FB-D6E01F4112E8}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{3E4B349F-10B5-4586-9D99-489A90A8B228}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{32E4F0D2-C135-475E-A841-1D59A0D22989}]

 

[Michael Alan]

Well without messing with the registry
I tested the supposed inability to uninstall (via Add/Remove programs) fluke I found with 1.74
by seeing if the original from-the-disc 1.61 Vanilla Civ version I had been playing along had the same quirk
I found it did, it too won't uninstall from the Add/Remove programs page
so that problem is not patch 1.74 specific
I uninstalled v1.61 easily using the setup.exe icon on the inserted Civ CD-ROM
Then reinstalled the whole game, patch 1.74, got the Error pop up, it completed as usual, then installed BTS
Played both games with no hitches so far.
Hope it stays that way.
After all this I can't say I notice a single problem yet with using the 1.74 update.
Thanks for all the support Ori, GVBN and others.
this is a relatively decent forum I'm finding out.

GVBN - Is the deletion of those reg keys you mentioned helpful in allowing someone to uninstall the game OR does removing the reg keys help in avoiding the Error 1706 pop ups during patch upgrades?

Ori - am absorbing the ways of happiness too
copied that thread
thanks