Titanus

Hi again Dosfreak! I uninstalled ACT 3.0 and apparently all went fine (no errors). I say apparently because a lot of files remained in ACT folder, and a lot of keys in the registry. I ran ACT 2.6 I downloaded yesterday but it says that a newer version was found and so it won't let me install! I then used Norton Utilities 2003 Windoctor to remove all registry entries ACT 3.0 related. It found a lot and I think it removed all of them. I also deleted the ACT folder from program files. I reboot the PC and again try to install ACT 2.6. To my frustration is gives the very same message: Newer version found!! I looked to the monitor for a few minutes without knowing what to do... I then tried to install version 2.5, I had in backup in a CD. It gave no problems at all and installed fine. Works fine also. But I can't, no matter what I do, install 2.6!! Weird... I thought the file was corrupted but ii it asks where to install is because it passes the CRC check, right??? Weird stuff.... Any ideas????

I'll try the first option. I don't have a .MSI editor, and I don't feel like searching for one! Thanx DosFreak!!

Hi! I have recently installed ACT 3.0, after removing 2.5 on my Win2000 SP3. This 3.0 version is quite different. It doesn´t have any qfixapp and I just can't make any shortcut to an exe with a compatibility mode or fix! I can only enter in compatibility administrator tool (CAT), create a new compatibility database (.sdb), because the system ones are read-only, and save may game fixes in this sdb file. However I must always enter in CAT and run a fixed program from there to make it work!! It's annoying! The sdb should be integrated in the system somehow.... so that I didn't have to always start CAT to run a fix!! Now I'm thinking in uninstalling 3.0 and go back to 2.5... Could anybody give me a hand here?? I mean, its just me or ACT 3.0 suxs? Thanx

Yes, now I have Messenger 5.0. It´s great!! And I finally found the problem!!!! 8) 8) BTW, it didn't have any to do with Messenger. It was, of course, a damn hardware problem!!!! A little before all this mess started, I installed a new 64 Mb memory module. I had a 256 Mb double sided 133 mhz DIMM only, so a installed some more memory that my cousin gave to me. The problem is that the DIMM was a little old (2 years) and functioning at 100 Mhz. I always thought I would have no problem because my PC has a 100 Mhz working memory and all the "computer geeks" I know, told me that mixing 133 and 100 Mhz DIMMs would be of no harm... in 99 % of the cases!!! It seems I belong to the 1 % because when I removed the damn 100 Mhz DIMM, and reinstalled win2000 SP3 all my problems went away!!! 8) And this problem only ocurred in Win2000!!! In Win98 the 100 and 133 Mhz DIMMs gave me no problem at all!!! Weird... It must be Windows 2000 memory management, which is completely different from 98!! Win2000 is in fact very good and stable but it is just very sensitive with hardware problems!! But thanx for your help anyway...

I have been using messenger 4.6. I think it's the latest. Anyway, another similar error ocurred even when I shut down messenger, before reinstalling Shockwave 8.5.1. So, I think it's not a messenger's fault but something else I haven't figured out yet. Tried IErradicator... Like expected it didn't work very well... It messed up my Windows completely. When reinstalled IE6 SP1 there where many strange errors and missing stuff... So I went back to the beginning. New partition, new format and new Windows 2000 SP1 clean install. After this I have just installed Creative video drivers 29.42, which always worked fine before, and my cable modem drivers. Then I went imediatelly to sites with Flash animation content. My favorite, the source of all this mess is www.mytmn.pt To my absolute frustration and surprise, when I said Yes to install Flash player, IE crashed and I had to reboot... ;( ;( I never quit, but this is starting to look like a curse!!!! Now I really don't know what to do...could it be the cable modem????? It's pratically the only thing I installed after win2000!!! I also thought it could be a site problem, but I receive the same error on other sites!!! Could someone enter the damn site and tell me if there was any error??? Thanx for your help

Thanx, but I have found it. I used Macromedia Flash Uninstaller first and then installed shockwave 8.5.1. While installing I received a "MSN messenger caused errors and will be closed"! I hate this sh*t.... I'm starting to think that I'll have to reformat again!!! 2nd time in a week!! ;( ;( ;( ;( ;( ;( But I'll still try IErradicator for Internet explorer. If this doesn't work nothing will, but this FUC*ING computer is not more persistent than me!!! Oh yeah....

I think I tracked it down... It's definitely a Flash related problem. When I first visited a site with it, Windows asked me if I wanted to install Flash 6. I made a mistake and said no. The site did not open correctly. Now, when I try to instal the damn thing, BAM!! BSOD and a reference to Win32k.sys!! Can anybody explain me any of this??? This happens after a fresh Windows 2000 install!!! And before this happened I checked Event Log and everything was fine!! No errors at all!! It seems to me that if someone refuses to install Flash 6 when asked, at the first time, IE is all screwed up if you try to install it later!! Damn buggy software... Any solutions?? Can I uninstall and reinstall flash?? How??

Yeah, I can switch browser but I'm used to this one.... And yes I tried IE6, 5.5, 6 SP1, nothing worked... I think it´s correlated with Macromedia Flash. All sites that use it, gave problems!! Oh, and after inumerous reinstalls and all sort of solutions my Windows 2000 SP3 crashed completely... Didn´t even restart!! Not even in safe mode!!! So my only option was really to format everything. ;( Now that I have a clean install, I applied IE 6 SP1 Update and entered some flash thing site.... And to my absolutely enormous 8) 8) there it was, the same error again!!!! I'm really piss*d off!!!! WTF?? I won´t format again, so MS can stick IE up their AS*!!!!

So, no ideas hey...

Yeah those guys at EA are just a bunch of arrogant idiots!! But their games are fun that's the problem...

Discovered that GP4 v4.0 patch is not oficially supported by infogrames. It seems that it's incomplete... So Infogrames doesn't recomend the use of it! Idiots.... But they say there is going to be an oficial patch... in a few MONTHS!!!!! By then the game should be at half the price that I have bought it, and until then I almost can't use the damn thing!!! Thanx Infogrames for a bad business...

PLEASE, I NEED HELP!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.... I'll try to write a short post but it will be difficult considering how strange the problem is and info I have. THESE ARE MY COMPUTER SPECS: Intel Desktop Board CC820 for Pentium III Intel Pentium III Slot 1 @ 600 Mhz 250 Watts Power Supply 320 Mb PC133 SDRAM Creative 3DBlaster GeForce 2 MX (Drivers Creative v30.82) IBM 20 GB UDMA4 ATA-66 7200 RPM Fujitsu 1,6 GB DMA 2 ATA-16 Sound Blaster 128 PCI Onboard with Creative latest drivers Diamond Supra Express 56k Modem US Robotics Cable Modem Realtek NIC CD-ROM Teac 540E 40x IDE CD-RW Teac W540E 40x12x48 IDE Sony Monitor 17" Microsoft Mouse PS2 Microsoft Keyboard Windows 2000 Professional SP3 Portuguese with ALL Updates (in Drive E) DirectX 8.1 Windows 98 SE (Dual Boot) I have Updated Internet Explorer 5.5 to 6.0 little time after instaling Windows2 000 from scratch, 3 months ago. Internet Explorer 6 always worked fine for me but now something really f*cking weird and annoying just happened! Yesterday everything net-related worked ok but today when I tried to open some webpages THIS ERROR appears and I'm forced to close IE6 (without having access to that particular page): "Microsoft Internet Explorer will be closed..." Bla bla... and if I want to deliver an error report to Microsoft. And that report is anonymous and confidential... something like that. (I tryied to put here an image with this error but I don't know how to do it on this forum) WTF???????????? And sometimes I even get some BSODs!!! 8) ;( First one was related to win32k.sys file but I think it varies. What is really weird is that Internet Explorer crashes completly with no warning only when I visit certain websites!!! Specially those with some kind shockwave animation or something. Unfortunately I use one of those sites a lot: www.mytmn.pt I also got access to event log error description. The ONLY error I found was this one (at the time of the crash-I don't have any other errors): Event Type: Error Event Source: Microsoft Internet Explorer Event Category: None Event ID: 1000 Date: 16/10/2002 Time: 23:54:39 PM User: N/D Computer: MACGYVER Description: Não é possível localizar a descrição do ID do evento ( 1000 ) na origem ( Microsoft Internet Explorer ). O computador local pode não ter as informações de registo necessárias, ou os ficheiros .DLL de mensagem para mostrar mensagens a partir de um computador remoto. Faulting application iexplore.exe, version 6.0.2600.0; wininet.dll; 6.0.2718.400; 000080d3. Dados: 0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat 0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail 0010: 75 72 65 20 20 69 65 78 ure iex 0018: 70 6c 6f 72 65 2e 65 78 plore.ex 0020: 65 20 36 2e 30 2e 32 36 e 6.0.26 0028: 30 30 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 00.0 in 0030: 77 69 6e 69 6e 65 74 2e wininet. 0038: 64 6c 6c 20 36 2e 30 2e dll 6.0. 0040: 32 37 31 38 2e 34 30 30 2718.400 0048: 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 73 at offs 0050: 65 74 20 30 30 30 30 38 et 00008 0058: 30 64 33 0d 0a 0d3.. Does anybody have this problem or know what error is this???? And how do I solve it?? Please, format is not an option because I have done 3 months ago and I don't want to do that again for a while. But I hate the ideia of just not having access to some pages!!! And who knows how many are those pages???? Could be millions... I'm starting to hate Internet Explorer 6!!! I have tryied to (among other things) reinstall Internet Explorer but with no success.... I'm completeley out of ideias and I don't know what to do... But one thing is certain. If I do not fix this without a complete format, I really hate Microsoft!! And all their products will be cr*p to me!!!!! ;( See, I'm not a computer iliterate, and watching something like this happen when I haven't installed absolutely nothing or changed a single option in my system, just gets me CRAZY!!!! I'll be eternally gratefull to anybody who helps me... Thanx

Hi Using a laptop to play can cause you more headaches with games than a normal desktop system would. And 128 Mb is not that much to play this game... It wouldn´t be enough to play Hot Date I think. But for Livin Large it should be enough... I have The Sims in my P3 600 with 320 Mb RAM, GeForce 2 MX and Win2000 SP3, and ALL SIMS expansion packs work well (including Livin Large), except Vacation because I don't have and so haven't tried it yet. Unfortunately those EA bastards (the game producers) don't oficially support Windows 2000 and refuse to give you any help concerning this OS, so I would recomend you to try Windows 2000 compatibility mode. It's easy, just right click the sims executable and choose properties. Then go to the compatibility TAB and choose windows 98 compatibility mode! If that doesn't work, try Qfixapp. If you don't have it you must download Application Compatibility Toolkit v2.6. The link for this is http://download.microsoft.com/download/.NetStandardServer/Install/2.6/NT5XP/EN-US/act26.exe Good luck

You must download Application Compatibilty Toolkit v2.6 from Microsoft. It includes other tools but the most important is in fact QFixApp. 8) The link do download it is: http://download.microsoft.com/download/.NetStandardServer/Install/2.6/NT5XP/EN-US/act26.exe It only works/installs with Windows 2000 Service Pack 3!!!! 8)

Could someone please help me here?? I have just installed Geoff Crammonds' Grand Prix 4 on my PC, and in a hurry because I just love these F1 games!!! :x It installed fine and even played ok, considering I have a "slow" machine for this "heavy" graphics game. But I managed to play with 800x600 with most important features on, on my P3 600 with GeForce 2 MX, and with about 18 FPS. However, little time after starting to play, game quits to desktop... I thought: well I hope it was just bad luck this time!! But it wasn't... GP4 constantly keeps quitting to desktop, though time of play before quitting varies from 2 hours to 5 min. There was a day in which it was quitting every 5 minutes!!! Very annoying!!! I use dozens of games in my Win2000 SP3, from old FIFA 99 to GP3 and even UT2003!! And none of them as a single problem!!! Yes, I have the most recent drivers from my creative graphics card (30.82) and DirectX8.1 I also use a Thrustmaster Force Feedback GT Wheel with Win2000 drivers up-to-date, to play the game. I have also applied latest GP4 patch (v4.0 I think...), thinking it would solve this particular problem, since it´s the only one I actually have with games!! 8) At least in the patch readme it's written it is supposed to solve "quit to desktop" problems!!! On my case it remained the same cr*p! Besides, before I aplied the patch, it quitted generally when I pressed Esc during play to go to main menu.. It just starts reading the CD and I surprisingly watch my windows desktop instead of GP4 menu... and it's also very annoying because I can't even save the game!! It just quits before!! Now that I have aplied the patch I think it's even worse: it also quits when I'm driving my orange Arrows in race or qualifying or whatever... Sometimes it takes 5 min, a few times 1 hour, but it always quits!! Oh, and I also turn off my Mcafee anti-virus before playing... Sorry for the long post but I think that I should provide much info I can, so that if somebody wants to help an unfortunate guy, you won't have any info missing!!! 8) Here go my system specs: Intel Desktop Board CC820 for Pentium III Intel Pentium III Slot 1 @ 600 Mhz 250 Watts Power Supply 320 Mb PC133 SDRAM Creative 3DBlaster GeForce 2 MX (Drivers Creative v30.82) IBM 20 GB UDMA4 ATA-66 7200 RPM Fujitsu 1,6 GB DMA 2 ATA-16 Sound Blaster 128 PCI Onboard with Creative latest drivers Diamond Supra Express 56k Modem US Robotics Cable Modem Realtek NIC CD-ROM Teac 540E 40x IDE CD-RW Teac W540E 40x12x48 IDE Sony Monitor 17" Microsoft Mouse PS2 Microsoft Keyboard Windows 2000 Professional SP3 Portuguese with ALL Updates (in Drive E) DirectX 8.1 Windows 98 SE (Dual Boot) So, does anybody have any similar problem with GP4, and a possible way to solve it? Thanx in advance