problem installing patch

[0069twiggy]

I am trying to install the latest patch for civ 4 but when I go to install it it says that no version of civ 4 is installed on my computer. This however, is not true. What is wrong?

Also, I downloaded it online from www.trygames.com I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

 

[Revenant]

What version of Civ are you running? Vanilla, warlords or BTS?

I'd recommend getting the patch from Civfanatics itself:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=12

 

[0069twiggy]

I am playing vanilla. I downloaded the patch from this site and I still get the same error message.

 

[0069twiggy]

I think I found the problem. I bought the game from trymedia so I needed the patch for their version of the game.

However, I bought Warlords and BTS from direct2drive and now when I go to install it says that Civ 4 is not installed properly.

Is this because I bought the two games from different places? Are they not compatible?

 

[s.bernbaum]

That is probably your trouble. When you buy an electronic only version from one of the online outfits, they have modified something in the program in order to have it recognize their online DRM instead of looking for the disk when you start a game. Each company has its own DRM setup, so they are probably mutually exclusive from one another and from a game installed from disk. Some of the online outfits even change where the game gets installed, which could be why you had the initial problem of the patch not being able to even find the game.

 

[0069twiggy]

Is there anything I can do to correct this?

 

[s.bernbaum]

I only know of the problem from discussions on the forums. My previous comments exhausted my knowledge of this problem. I would suggest that you ask in this forum instead of the Genreral Discussion forum:

"Civ4 - Technical Support
Forum for technical questions, such as compatibilities, game installation, sound, or video problems."

That is where the tech experts hang out.

 

[Psyringe]

You can ask the technical support of trymedia and Direct2Drive if there is a solution for your problem. I'd be surprised if it's actually possible to combine base and expansion obtained from different online services, but asking won't hurt anyway.

You can check whether the fine print of trymedia and Direct2Drive makes clear that there can be compatibility problems with base/expansion products bought elsewhere. If not, you can try to get your money back based on the claim that you haven't been properly informed of the product's limitations and cannot use it due to those.

 

[deanej]

It's probably covered under "we assume no responsibility for blah blah blah" part which is in every EULA.

 

[God-Emperor]

The problem is almost certainly that they changed the registry keys that store the location of where the game is installed. The installer for the expansions from company B is looking for specific registry keys to tell it where to install the update (likewise for the patches), but the install from company A did not use the registry keys it is looking for so it can not tell that the program is installed. They might have the same names but be in a different location, or they might also have different names.

Theoretically, you could fix this by creating a set of keys in the registry in the right place with the right names pointing to the right locations. In practice, messing around in the registry without knowing what you are doing is a good way to mess up your computer. You'd have to know what the installer is looking for, too. That would probably require the help of somebody who has that version already installed, or examining the installer to see what it is looking for (potentially tricky, and potentially violating the EULA).