Problems with Win 7

[Pomphis]

I had Civ4 on my Win7 notebook. Two paths, one from Programs(86x) and one from MyGames. Everything worked fine. The harddrive had a major problem and had to be replaced. I tried to reinstall from my old Complete Civ CD. First attempt resulted in Civ4 running, but I couldn´t find the 2K Games / Firaxis Folders at all. Everything was apparently under MyGames. Second attempt had the opposite result: this time the path from MyGames was completely missing. When I tried to open the ini file to change it to No Intro movie the file couldn´t be found, though it was shown.

Does anybody have an idea what may be wrong and what to do ?

 

[Pomphis]

I now reinstalled as recommended in a new C/GAMES folder. The games run. But when I copy my mods (from my backup) the result is that they are shown as loadable mods, it looks as if I can load some, though others crash (lots of XML failures), but even those looking like they loaded are simply not there afterwards. That is, I am offered the Unload Mod option, but when I start playing the additional civs are not available.

 

[kiwitt]

Make sure you copy the mods into the correct folder.

C:\GAMES\CIV4\Mods - Civ4 vanilla Mods
C:\GAMES\CIV4\Warlords\Mods - Civ4 Warlords Mods
C:\GAMES\CIV4\Beyond The Sword\Mods - Civ4 BTS Mods

 

[Pomphis]

First, thank you.

Then, I did. I reinstalled in C/GAMES/CIV4. I copied some BtS mods (Amazon Civilization, Extra Civs, World of Legends) into C/GAMES/CIV4/Beyond the Sword/Mods, where all the mods coming with the CD are, exactly as before. I can run BtS, and when I go to Advanced and Load Mod, they are shown as available mods. When I load them they are shown as loading. But when BtS shows the start page again, with Amazon Civilization and Extra Civs the list of available civs is unchanged, and with WoL I do not get the WoL start picture but plain BtS and also only the regular BtS civs. In all cases I am offered Unload Mod and the unload routine seems to work as before.

BTW, when reinstalling the .ini file was no longer accessible for Civ4 (it was shown, but the computer couldn´t open it and wanted to search for it) and there was no .ini in the BtS folder. So I copied it from my old backup, and the NoIntroMovie change works fine.

 

[kiwitt]

It sounds as if you need to re-install the WoL mod not just copy it, as it may place stuff in the custom mods folder of "my games".

 

[Pomphis]

Thank you again. I really appreciate the support available here for free.

I believe I found the problem for Amazon Civilization and Extra Civs: many of their files were hidden after copying them from the back up. No idea why. But after I removed the Hidden attribute from everything in those folders I am now offered the additional civs after I load those mods.

I will check next whether this was the problem with the other mods too.

 

[Pomphis]

Looks like it was. Israel, King Solomon, History Rewritten, Lords of Revolution, Rise of Mankind - A New Dawn, World of Legends all again after I removed the Hidden attribute from everything within their folders.

Maybe some update to Win 7 results in it misidentifying some of the mod files as windows system files, so that Win 7 hides them like all other system files ?

 

[kiwitt]

Maybe some update to Win 7 results in it misidentifying some of the mod files as windows system files, so that Win 7 hides them like all other system files ?

Interesting.

Do you know the file extensions of the files you unhid?

 

[Padjur]

The harddrive had a major problem and had to be replaced.

Maybe some update to Win 7 results in it misidentifying some of the mod files as windows system files, so that Win 7 hides them like all other system files ?

This sounds suspiciously like Malware, something like system-fix which makes it appear that there are hard disk problems, including hiding certain folders until it is removed, at which point you can enable view hidden files.

 

[Pomphis]

Thank you, but IMO unlikely. There were no error messages like that at all, and I had the notebook checked by an IT company which has been working for our law firm for quite a few years. They tried a lot of things to save at least the data but finally told me that the harddrive itself was so damaged that they couldn´t read anything on it at all. Anyway, by now it´s too late. The old drive is physically destroyed and I have new one.

 

[Pomphis]

Interesting.

Do you know the file extensions of the files you unhid?

I used SpeedCommander to unhide simply everything within their folders.

On the replacement laptop I used in the meantime (where I didn´t bother to do so much) in the Amazon Civilization folder the Assets folder and the .ini file are hidden. Everything inside the Assets folder is hidden.

In Extra Civs (IIRC, Kochman´s) all folders except Jerusalem are hidden. Everything inside the hidden folders is hidden. Everything inside the Jerusalem folder is hidden.

Everythig means at least .ini, .xml, .dds, .kf, .kfm, .nif, .jpg. I didn´t check all folders down to the file level.

 

[Padjur]

Thank you, but IMO unlikely......

Accepted, but it's not Win 7 either, the O/S does not automatically change the hidden attributes unless the registry settings have changed. The most likely reason would be malware,

I had the notebook checked by an IT company which has been working for our law firm for quite a few years.

unless.....have you used the notebook at work at anytime?

 

[Pomphis]

I forgot: this hiding problem occured on both my replacement notebook and my old notebook with the new harddrive. Both use Win 7 Professional with all updates.

And it hid not just some files, but entire folders and everything inside those folders. So my guess that some files were misidentified as system files cannot be correct, or at least not be a complete explanation. The hiding did affect at least one .jpg, but many other .jpg were copied from my backup without problems.

 

[Pomphis]

Accepted, but it's not Win 7 either, the O/S does not automatically change the hidden attributes unless the registry settings have changed. The most likely reason would be malware,
unless.....have you used the notebook at work at anytime?

But the same malware on two notebooks at almost the same time ? Both with anti-malware protection ? And hiding only very few folders and files on both notebooks, and the same on both ?

Both notebooks are mainly used for work. The old one with the new harddrive has not yet been connected with the office network, not been used for e-mail and only a very few cases on the internet and only on trusted sites like this one. But both use constantly updated Win 7.

 

[Pomphis]

I looks as if I have to apologize to Microsoft and Win 7: I just checked my backup drive, and the hidden stuff was already hidden there. No idea how or why. The backup was copied from my old notebook, and on my old notebook this problem didn´t exist.

 

[Padjur]

But the same malware on two notebooks at almost the same time ? Both with anti-malware protection ? And hiding only very few folders and files on both notebooks, and the same on both ?.

No, I don't mean to question my colleagues work at your IT company, as you say it's not malware.
What I mean is that for most home users, Win 7 is set to use the default settings so unless the user sets the hidden attribute for the file and folder this type of problem would not normally occur, unless it was malware.
But a machine used for work (especially something as sensitive as a legal office) is likely to have all sorts of ACL's, GPO's and so on attached to it, these may have alltered the attribute or possibly third party backup software such as secure copy. Again somehow, at sometime the attribute was changed but not by the O/S, Windows 7 is not Vista, just as Windows XP is not Windows ME.

I looks as if I have to apologize to Microsoft and Win 7: I just checked my backup drive, and the hidden stuff was already hidden there.