Strange problem with the installation

[Viden]

Hi! I have a strange problem: When I install the game (Physical support) and it arrives to "Finishing the installation" The installation freezes for hours (The top was the second time: Above 12:30 hours!). I launch Ctrl+Alt+Supr but the installation is "running".

What happens? Any solution?

Thanks a lot.

[Pocus]

Hi Viden,
Sorry for the inconvenience! See this FAQ:

Question: AACW installs correctly and then wait with a message saying 'finishing installation'.

Answer:

The installer has launched the registration utility, but for some reason it does not appears on the screen.

First check that the installer window don't mask the utility. Try to reduce the installer window, or do alt-tab to check if a program named 'AGESettings' is not waiting in memory.

If this does not work, terminate the installer by clicking on the close button (do not cancel!). Alternatively you can close it by going to the task manager to terminate it.

You should have a program group created (in the Start Menu) with the game registered. There is a link to the registration utility, AGESettings.

In case of further problem:

The utility is installed in the game directory: by default in c:\program files\AGEOD's American Civil War\, it is named AGESettings.exe


In this don't work:

For a reason unknown the utility to register your key is not allowed by windows to run. This can happen most notably on Vista. Sometime it is because of a protection program like a firewall, antivirus and such.
Know though that the utility don't access internet and don't perform any special operation on your computer. It is a plain and simple windows utility to write your key in a text file and that's all!

What can be done is that you write the key yourself. Please open the file <game path>\ACW\Settings\general.opt (this is a text file, open it with notepad for example). At the end, you should see something like

serial =

enter your serial after equal, save and exit. Now launch the game, hopefully it will be ok.

[Viden]

Ok. I installed by third time and the registration utility apeared.

Thanks a lot!

[Pocus]

I'm but your humble servant!

[JohnBuford]

I too am having the same problem with a re-install of the game.

i had acw on the computer last year.

I'm getting a lock-up of the "finishing the installation" screen.
I can minimize it to the task bar, but cant close it out using the "x"
in the upper corner. and cant move it or anything else. it is greyed-out and just wont respond.

now i'm running windows vista with norton security suite, windows defender, and super antispyware as security.
disabled the norton firewall and anti virus but to no avail.

the acw setting button wont respond and the acw.exe icon wont either.

the general.opt file on has the following notation at the end of the page:
7. Serial number (unencrypted, keep this file for you only)

nothing that looks like "serial ="

would rather you show me what the "serial" line should look like rather than tell me.

hope you can help me out.

[arsan]

Hi john buford
On my settings file, the lines we are talking about look like this:

7. Serial number (unencrypted, keep this file for you only)
Serial = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


You should put you serial number where the XXXX are.
If you don't nave the "serial=" line, just write it yourself like the one i posted above.
And then save changes, close the file and try to start the game
Hope it helps!

[JohnBuford]

i'm afraid it didn't work
but thanks for the reply.

[Primasprit]

Hi JohnBuford,

was this problem resolved meanwhile? If not please send a mail with your serial and a reference to this thread to [email="support@ageod.com"]support@ageod.com[/email] and I send you a working general.opt.

Cheers
Norbert

[Primasprit]

Please disregard my post above. I saw your mail on support just now. Sorry for the delay, but I was the last days somewhat "out of order". I will check what's going on and write you a mail.

[JohnBuford]

i nominate norm for general of the army..either side!

his help got me playing.

(norm, this solution sure may help others down the line.

denny

[JohnBuford]

general of the army norm,
i must report a further quirk with the game/vista.
after ending a session of the game, i have to restart windows to get
back in without a load-bar lockup. any ideas?
also, do you se any difficulties loading the files for the historical accuracy update?

private of the army denny

[Primasprit]

Hi Denny,

actually I have no idea why you need to restart Windows to make the game working again as I have never been able to reproduce these issues on my Vista system.
One thing which changed from XP to Vista are somewhat more restrictive access rights to certain directories (for example \Program Files) which may cause trouble sometimes if the build-in compatibility mechanism (the virtualized folders) of Vista fails.

The newest version (uploaded today) of the AACW 1.11d patch contains some changes in this regard. You can try the following, maybe this can solve your problems (and give us valuable informations too. ).
You now have the posibility to tell the game that it saves all user specific files (config files, log files, savegames) to your My Documents folder, a place there you are guaranteed to have full access rights.

1. Please download the AACW 1.11d patch again and install it.

2. Attached you find a file: UserPath.ini (The file attached is actually UserPath.zip, you need to extract the file from the zip archive.). Copy this in your game directory. (The place there the AACW.exe and AGESettings.exe reside.)

3. Start AGESettings.exe. If everything goes well the program should start and does not show your serial number.

4. Please close AGESettings again. The whole reason to start the config program was to create some directories in your My Documents folder.

5. Please navigate to your My Documents folder. You should find there a sub-directory with the same name as your game directory.

6. Copy the Saves and the Settings directory (...\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\) from your game directory to the corresponding directory in your My Documents folder (...My Documents\AGEod's American Civil War\ACW\).

7. Start AGESettings again. If everything went well it should now display your serial number again. Close AGESettings again. Now start the game. All your savegames and logfiles will now be written to the My Documents folder.

You can undo everything by simply deleting the UserPath.ini again.

Cheers
Norbert

[ctd]

i ve read through the forums, basically i have encountered the same problem as many others

game installation froze every time when reaching "finishing installation". when i kill AGEsettings.exe in taskmanager installation finishes, but program wont start. tried to edit general.opt manually, with little success. then somehow i got the idea to patch it with the latest (1.11d), and it seemed to help my problem. after installing patch the configuration utility did run, and i was able to enter my serial nr. i ve checked in general.opt, its there. so i was happy, launched game - loading screen goes up till 1/3, then freezes, finito, end of story. tried to put spaces in the serial, it caused the config utility to jump into my face again, saying the serial is incorrect length. so more or less i guess the serial is entered correctly.

have windows xp, so the vista problem with the installation path is not a problem for me.

game should run smoothly on hardware cause it did in the past. (i suppose the system requirements didnt change radically by newer patches)

help me guys im dying here to play the game! i wanna march through georgia!

[ohms_law]

I'm honestly trying to help here, not trying to be coy or anyhting, but:

loading screen goes up till 1/3, then freezes, finito, end of story.

Are you positive that it's frozen? What makes you think that it freezes?
I'm asking because the loading steps really can take a long time...

[Pocus]

When the progress bar stops at 1/3, it is generally that the settings program has pop-up and ask your for your serial key. Or try to pop-up being is halted by a security program from Windows.

Please send your general.opt file and your key to support@ageod.com, and we will edit the file for you, then it should run.

[ctd]

I'm honestly trying to help here, not trying to be coy or anyhting, but:

Are you positive that it's frozen? What makes you think that it freezes?
I'm asking because the loading steps really can take a long time...

it is frozen, the cpu usage drops to zero and memory usage fixes on the same level around . and nothing happens, at least nothing for 5 mins. im aware that it could take a while to load, as i ve said it used to run on the exact same machine.

[ctd]

When the progress bar stops at 1/3, it is generally that the settings program has pop-up and ask your for your serial key. Or try to pop-up being is halted by a security program from Windows.

Please send your general.opt file and your key to support@ageod.com, and we will edit the file for you, then it should run.

i will most certainly do so

yesterday i ve stopped both firewall and antivirus when trying.

OH SHIT! just as i was writing now i was thinking "ok what else security program could there be that i use." then i ve realized that there IS something else, called spybot search and destroy, and when i ve killed it now the [SIZE="6"]PROGRAM RUNS[/size]

name of the program is Spybot Search&Destroy and it has a Realtime Scanner. name of the exe file is teatimer.exe

so, guys out there if anyone runs into the same problem check for this program, maybe this is the one blocking. wow, maybe i ve contributed sthing im so happy and i can play!

thanks for the tip pocus, and i have to say, you guys have made a great game! borrowed it from a friend some time ago but i ve felt i have to buy it for myself, this sh*t is so good!

[Zebedee]

know this may be silly ctd, but I had a similar problem when using newer patches. It was resolved by downloading the latest official drivers for my card and the last version of direct x 9 released.

[Rafiki]

Good to hear you got things sorted out, ctd

[Pocus]

Good to know that Spybot can do that.

[Zebedee]

Wonder whether OP may not have allowed permission for AACW to change the registry? I use spybot and it's fine provided that you allow programmes you want to run alter the registry

[Pocus]

Given that 99% of program add a registration key in the registry (so that a patch can know where they are located), I find strange that Spybot prevent that, are you sure?

[Primasprit]

Spybot comes with a program which enables you to monitor the changes to your registry. Similar to a personal firewall it asks for permission if a program tries to change the registry.

Cheers
Norbert

[Zebedee]

The settings on Spybot can be configured to be as strict or as lax as you wish. I turn it off when installing the game (as with all AVs) to avoid corruption issues but haven't had any problems with AACW when running spybot in the background while I play.

All the best,

Zeb