Running Arcanum in Windows 7? Help please!

Put the XP part under all of those. Considering you have to make an .exe run in compatibility mode, any change of said .exe will revert the changes. So:

1074
UAP
Hi-Res
Compatibility

IN THIS ORDER

 

THANK YOU.
This is invaluable, thank you.
Just to make sure, also directed directly at you, Monsieur Berg:

- Will doing this make my current saved games bugged or unplayable?
- I need to uninstall first, right?

- Last question: Now, I notice that every time when I run Arcanum, the little yellow windows warning pops up and says: Are you sure you want to let this application make changes to your computer? Name: arcanum.exe Producer: Unknown. Origin: Hard drive. (It's all in German, DAMN THEM, so I am not exactly sure what to write here, but I think it is Windows 7). The little aracnum icon for the shortcut even has that little "shield"-looking symbol in the bottom right corner (which probably indicates something like this is going to happen I guess). Does this mean something? Is this because I told it to run in "compatability thing"? Is this nothing to worry about?

(By the way, does anyone know how I can get my Windows 7 (Home Premium) to speak to me in English? When I click on the "Language and Region" section of my Settings, I can change the keyboard style, but I cannot get it to change to English language interface, which I was able to do without a problem in Vista. I did google this, and I got the information that I need English language LIPs or soemthing like that, but all of the links to how to get them were broken or dead. I had imagined changing this would be trivial, but I am surprised -- would anyone be kind enough to help a poor idiot further? Thank you)

Thank you very very much for everything

 

You know the window pane where you selected "run in compatibility mode" ? Open that up again, and find the check box that says "run as administrator." and check it. That should fix this. If it's already checked, I'm at a bit of an impasse, I'm afraid.

Are you in the US/UK/AU? If not, you may need to download the English Language Pack. Depending on where you are in the world, it may or may not be available. If you want it to speak to you in English, try the "sounds" section. While this issue has nothing to do with Arcanum, it interests me. I think we've a couple W7 machines at work, so I'll try and take a look at this then.

 

I am not sure about broken savegames, but even if they break with your new install, it's not dangerous, since you can just revert the install back to how it was and the saves will work again.

On uninstalling: No need to uninstall and reinstall Arcanum. Just delete all superfulous .dat*'s from the main folder (I think it's 4 through 7, 1 through 3 are the game and patch .dat's), as well as the "data" and "highres" folders. That should revert the game back to the unmodded state, but I am not 100% sure about arcanum.exe itself.

 

THANK YOU.

@Dark:
- I will check that checkbox, thank you.
- Yes, I am in Germany. Sounds will not do it. I TRIED to get this "Language Pack" things (which I did not need to do for Vista) but all the links I find are dead or broken. It seems that even I tell Windows in the "Regions" tab that I am NOT in Germany, but rather e.g. in the UK, it wont let me download these language packs. What am I supposed to do?

@Viktor: Thank you -- sadly, I am not sure I entirely understood, hence I have not yet done anything. Are you saying: I delete .dat files in the main arcanum directory (seems to be right in the c: directory under Sierra) and THEN do 1074 again and THEN UAP again and THEN do hi-res? Or are you saying I should delete the .dat files only if my saved games are broken? Or are you saying something else? Sorry

 

PS. I checked the box "run as administrator", but it still gives me the little pop-up window and the warning, and the icon has the little shield down on it. Have not yet reinstalled, waiting to see if my saved games will be ok

 

No, you need to delete the .dat files in order to have a "clean" Arcanum install. When you remove said .dat's, the game goes back to the original unmodded state. Which is when you reapply UAP, Hi-Res Patch and Compatibility, in that order.

 

Go into control panel, and select "Windows Updates." There should hopefully be an option to view important and/or optional updates. If there is, you can choose to install the language packs. If not, I'm afraid you're probably out of luck, unless you want to upgrade to Ultimate, which I'm fairly certain has that option (My Vista Home Premium doesn't have language packs available, but my Ultimate does). I just confirmed it: only W7 Ultimate has the option to install language packs, so I'm afraid that, unless you want to upgrade, you're outta luck.

Also, please don't double post. Just edit the original post.

Well, that's interesting. I would say try turning your anti-virus/firewall off (disconnect your computer from the network, if you're worried about it), and then see if it still does it. Conversely, could you take a screenshot of it, and link us to it?

 

Thank you.
Viktor, I think that did the trick. Great, thank you!

Dark Elf: Thank you. I think you are right. I checked the notes for Win7 Ultimate, and it seems to include this language stuff which was standard in Vista Home Premium.

Grrr. I am going to try to find some language packs and install them nonetheless, if possible, I think that is really barbarian of Microsoft; why should I pay 270 Euros more for that product when they have already produced it? I dont WANT it in German, for which they have spent the money to localize it. GRRR

 

Minor error in your response, methinks, since I don't believe Dark Elf's spoken in this thread.

Yea, their method of doing language packs in recent versions is kind of sucky. Annoys me for things like web pages that want the Japanese language pack. They show up fine on my laptop (which runs Vista Ultimate), but my touchsmart has Home Premium, and so it doesn't display properly.

 

DE spoke in this thread. He told me I was wrong. It's back on page 1 somewhere.

 

sorry for the mixup

 

meh, the point was, don't thank a Dark Elf unless you meant to.

 

Things going well, then the game crashed yesterday while I was in Dernholm. Had to reboot. When I restarted, most of my saves were missing. The ones I can see in the "load" screen will not load -- I get the error message "Save Game Corrupted, failed".

When I try to navigate with the Windows Explorer to the Save Game folder, I cannot: I get the windows error message that the "file or folder is corrupt".

What should I do?
Thank you

 

I would advise running a check disk repair function. If you don't know how to do that:

1) hold down the windows key on your keyboard
2) press R while still holding the windows key.
3) in the box that pops up, type "cmd"
4) a black box will appear, with a C:\ in it
5) type in chkdsk /f
6) it will probably tell you that you need to run on the next restart, agree to it (press Y, I believe).
7) Restart the machine.

That should repair any corrupt files from the hard-shut down. If that doesn't fix it, I'm afraid you'll need to go find some more drastic way of repairing/removing those folders.

 

Thank you dark fool, seemed to help.
Is there sometihng I should be doing to avoid problems like these in the future?

Can any of you recommend an antivirus program for windows that is halfway decent and either shareware or not terribly expensive?

(Also, I am thinking of installing a POP3 program like Eudora for reading my emails offline -- do any of you know a sharware antispam program that is ok?)

thank you!

 

Avast
AVG
Kypersky

3 good antivirus programs that are pretty cheap and also have free versions that you can keep reinstalling every month.

 

I'm afraid that, if you've done what I said, and have patched Arcanum to it's fullest extent, then the crashes you're encountering are probably unfixable.

Magikarp's recommended exactly what I would've. I'd pick one, and use it.

 

From my experience, Arcanum runs surprisingly good on Win7 Ultimate 64bit. It was on a separate partition and I didn't even have to reinstall it, or the UAP/resolution patch, etc. Didn't even have to use compatibility mode. Played several hours straight without problem.

The only problem I've noticed is the cursor which has persistent black rectangle behind it. Minor, cosmetic shit.

And if you're looking for a free anti virus, consider Avira alongside those three above.