Stock game editor suddenly not working

[Predator145]

I was able to use the stock game editor fine yesterday. But today I run into this:


Has anyone encountered this before? The Quintillus editor can't add new resources and have the terrain allow it to appear. I need to use stock game's.

 

[Civinator]

I had to deal with that several times - always after certain windows updates. If remembering well the compability settings in windows for the editor had to be readjusted. Now I see the message, that indeed there was a windows update today. I will see what happens with the editor after the update is installed, as the former updates I had were for win 7 and win 10 and this now is my first update with win 11.

Edit: I had no problems with the Firaxis editor after the update in win 11. At present I cannot say anything about the Quintillus editor, as that editor until now was not yet transferred to my new pc due to the needed Java installation.

 

[Predator145]

I had to deal with that several times - always after certain windows updates. If remembering well the compability settings in windows for the editor had to be readjusted. Now I see the message, that indeed there was a windows update today. I will see what happens with the editor after the update is installed, as the former updates I had were for win 7 and win 10 and this now is my first update with win 11.

Edit: I had no problems with the Firaxis editor after the update in win 11. At present I cannot say anything about the Quintillus editor, as that editor until now was not yet transferred to my new pc due to the needed Java installation.

So what do you do? Reinstall civ3?

Edit: Run as administrator currently does it for me.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

No, the Editor is fine, it's the game that seems to have a problem.
The installer writes the following Windows Registry Key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames\Civ3PTW

which contains a number of values, for example
Install_Path = <where you installed Civ3>

When Windows introduced 64bit, the Registry was split in two parts: one for 32bit programs (like Civ3) and another one for the new 64bit programs. (No idea, why Microsoft did this, in my opinion, it only causes problems and confusion...)
Anyway, in a 64bit Windows installation, the keys for the old 32bit programs are now found in a special sub-folder, e.g. in our case:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Infogrames\Civ3PTW\Install_Path

And also, in newer Windows version, programs sometimes need special permissions to access the Registry.

So what does this mean for our problem? The above error message "Could not locate Civilization III: Play the World. Please make sure the game has been properly installed" looks to me like the Editor is trying to read the above Registry Key (in order to find out in which directory all the art files, maps, etc. can be found), and for some reason doesn't find that key. It then assumes, that the game has not been installed... Why is the key not found? There are two possible reasons:

1. The key is there, but the Editor cannot read/find it. (E.g. because of 32/64 bit registry mismatch, missing permissions, etc.)
   These kinds of errors are probaly solved by what Civinator mentioned above: run the Editor in "XP Compatibility Mode" (solves problems with 32/64 bit registry confusion) and run it as Administrator (solves permission problems).
2. The key does in fact not exist.
   If the tips above didn't help in your case, then this is probably what happened in your case. You can check this by starting the program "RegEdit" as Administrator and then checking, whether the following path is there:
   View attachment 646969
   Note: in addition to this one, I found two more, which may also be relevant:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Firaxis Games\Civilization III - Complete Edition\INSTALL_PATH
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Install_Path
   Probably this depends on which exact version/edition of Civilization III you have installed.
   
   If none of these exist, the next question is: why? I learned recently that only programs that run as Administrator, are allowed to write to the Registry. So if you did not run the installer with admin permissions, it would not have been able to write its registry keys, and this would explain why the Editor now cannot find them.
   Solution would then be to reinstall the game, but this time as Administrator.
   You could also try to create these three keys manually and fill them with the correct directory, where you installed the game, but I doubt this will be successfull. Chances are, there are a couple dozen other keys, that the game and/or Editor also expect, and which are still missing...

For reference.