telophase | INSTALLING CIVILIZATION IV: GOLD EDITION ON WINDOWS VISTA

For the benefit of those who expressed an interest in how Vista's working. For those who are wondering why the hell I have Vista: it's not for my primary machine. Read this weekend's posts for the fine details.

Step 1. Attempt to install normally. Fail to note teeny thing in bottom bar of desktop that flashes at you for several minutes. Terminate install, which has done nothing and gone nowhere.

2. Try again. Notice teeny thing. Note that it contains this INCREDIBLY USEFUL error message: "Setup.exe has stopped working." Gosh. Would never have known if you hadn't told me.

3. Do lots of websearching. Find lots of problems with Vista, as well as information that Civ IV *is* Windows-certified and theoretically compatible with Vista. Do not find this particular problem.

4. Try various things, such as downloading and installing DirectX 9, updating various drivers, etc. Nothing helps.

5. Whine at the boy via email.

6. Boot into safe mode, attempt install, to same results.

7. Read email from the boy. It links to a page of possible suggestions, which includes copying the CDs to disk and installing from there.

8. Copy to 3 folders on desktop. Start install. Success! Somewhat. Bog down when it asks for disk 2 and is unable to see either CD or desktop folder. Bitch to the boy via email.

9. Reread instructions, note that it seems to say all the files should be in same folder. Move CD-innard folders 2 and 3 to 1.

10. Install. Success!

11. Attempt to install Beyond the Sword from CD. Same problem. Start copying all data to one folder on desktop, post to LJ.

Total time so far: 2 hours. (Steps 3 and 4 were long, involved, frustrating, and took forever. :D)

ETA: 20 minutes after posting the above, the Incan Empire has started its climb to world domination! I was worried that having to have the CD i the drive would make it freak out, but that was no problem. I also have a widescreen laptop, and some people have reported problems with those, but mine seems to be working just fine. Yay. Finally.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

FYI, when I was having trouble installing stuff on Vista, I turned off administrator authentication - the nagging "you sure you want to do this?" window. Worked like a charm for everything I was having problems with.

YMMV, as always.

I turned that off in steps 3 and 4. Made no difference. :)

this sounds like the great battle that's going on in my house:

vista vs. the music harddrive.

vista: 1000
the music harddrive: -03543534536262266

Yet another reason not to use Vista until Service Pack 2 comes out.

BTW, if you ever play Age of Empires III (or have it already), I'll play you online.

Go, Civ! (Only the most awesome game ever invented ... and indirectly another fine product of the U.Va. Historical Simulation Society of the late 1970s-early1980s, because Bruce Shelley - who was also involved in Age of Empires - was both one of our members and one of the original Civ developers!)

THE U.VA. HISTORICAL SIMULATION SOCIETY OWES ME MANY DAYS OF MY LIFE

love CIV (still play version 2)(own them all) - HATE VISTA - recently bought a laptop that came with it - and sold it at a loss to get rid of the nasty thing.

GOod luck

If the laptop was to be my primary machine, I wouldn't have gotten Vista, but as it's an Internet box for conventions and a way to talk to my iPod, primarily, I decided not to wait on an XP machine.

And in a way I like having Vista because I can say with authority that I refuse to have it on my desktop. :D

Understood - the "voice of authority" - I have been there and done that - as opposed to "I hear that"

WEll :) - I been there, I done that - and I won't do it again!!!!!

OK I have vista on my laptop everything seems to be installed correctly. I keep getting an error that says to log in as the administrator when i already am

I'm not a tech support person and have no answer for you. Try Windows support or whoever sold you the computer.

hey pal. Sorry to invade your LJ, but I stumbled across this whilst looking for a solution to the same issue myself! Install Civ IV as normal, then right-click on the icon on the desktop, click "properties" and go to the "compatibility" tab, and change the options there. Xp works for me, buy you may need to use NT 4.0

I managed to get it to work, as I said above, by copying all the files to the disk and installing from there. I don't think your solution would have worked, as it requires I install it first, and installing was the problem. :)

But it's working now. I really need to throw more RAM into the laptop, but that can wait until after I get my desktop built. XD

i tried to install Civ IV gold for hours and eventually went to best buy where the geek squad guy had no idea of how to install it. i was about to give up when i found this article. it adressed every problem i had encountered. thank you

You're welcome!

INSTALLING CIVILIZATION IV: GOLD EDITION ON WINDOWS VISTA

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CIV

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I &%$# am logged in as the adminisrator

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Big Help

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