Comments on: Windows Vista Activation Goes Too Far

By: vicky

vicky — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:53:42 +0000

i had a kind of similiar problem. when i tried to download bots on the acclaim website. i dont know if the game can be bought or that so iv not tried to buy it but everthing worked fine it installed fine every time i clicked play it said it was not installed though. yet its in my computer. iv clicked on the icon thats saved and sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt and when it does work it crashes on the first page and never lets me play. on my old computer when i had windows xp i never had any of these problems but i now do with windows vista. also this is a brand new computer i have and before i installed or did anything on it it has been crashing and it still is now. does anyone else have this problem ?

vicky xx

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 05 May 2007 14:49:59 +0000

You can try running the executeable in compatability mode.

Right click the executeable->
Left click Properties->Compatibility Tab->Check the box that says “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and choose the OS.

You might also have to click the box at the bottom that says “Run this program as an administrator”

Not sure if that will work. I used to see this for old 98 games that wouldnt run on XP. The game only has certain windows versions on the cd rom and it is probably doing a simple Ver command and not recognizing the response Vista is giving it.

The other option I used to find that worked is that usually there was a way to force the install without the check, but this required getting the developer to publish the switch that would force the install executeable to do it. You might want to try the support boards for your game.

Dave

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 04 May 2007 08:02:47 +0000

I recently tried to install a simple little game (Nancy Drew Mysteries) on my new DELL PC, complete with Windows Vista. The game runs a little check to make sure the computer is up to par before installing, and my computer passed on everything…except for OS. The game reads Vista as “Windows NT”, implying that my version of Windows isn’t at least 98. Any ideas on how to fix this?

By: What is Vista?

What is Vista? — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:24:17 +0000

That’s why I switched to Ubuntu, even though my Dell came with Vista. I can install whatever I want, and most of what I was using on Windows (firefox, thunderbird, etc) are all available on Ubuntu. I can even turn off the horrible startup sound!

By: Windows Vista WGA Validation Problems Mount Tips Dr.com

Windows Vista WGA Validation Problems Mount Tips Dr.com — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:21:22 +0000

[...] Ed has been detailing WGA problems for awhile now, so it is only fitting that he lead us into the problems with Vista now. He also points us to a post from the Vista Knowledge Base website, detailing troubles installing 9dragons. I am playing the game when all of a sudden I get popped out of my game back to desktop with a message that my copy of Vista isn’t Genuine. Now I have the receipt, the box it came in, and the hole in my bank account to prove that I do indeed have a legal copy. It turns out that if you install a program your copies of Windows Vista will unactivate itself. I am livid, where does Microsoft get off telling me what I can put on my personal PC? I have been a Wintel network administrator going on 11 years now, and this just seems so over the top. Source: Windows Vista Activation Goes Too Far [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:31:54 +0000

I can understand how you feel right about now. I too tried to play 9Dragons and got an error. Instead of what happened to you though I started the game and a message popped up saying “Speed hack detected.”

Now I was using Vista Ultimate 64-bit which had just been freshly installed on a clean HD.

I don’t know why you, Dave, would be getting a deactivation error though. It may be Microsoft or it may be that Acclaim hasn’t incorperated Vista into it’s beta testing yet.

I think there should be a website strickly made for listing games that will run and will not run on Vista. I Age of Empires III also won’t run, nor will ZoneLabs Firewall.

When I get time I will look into making this new website.

By: Vista to automatically revoke activation ? » gHacks tech news

Vista to automatically revoke activation ? » gHacks tech news — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 11:30:36 +0000

[...] I came upon a very interesting post on the vista knowledgebase blog where the author was describing a very unusual behavior that he experienced with Windows Vista. She apparently was running a legit, fully activated copy of Windows Vista and decided to install the upcoming mmorpg game 9 Dragons which is currently in Open Beta phase. [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:08:48 +0000

My time to look into this deeply is limited because my kids just got home. If I get time during the week I will see what it is doing and try to follow up. The download is free at the link in the story though, if anyone wants to look into it deeper right now. And I fixed my spelling error

By: Tal Rotbart

Tal Rotbart — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 01:49:10 +0000

Firstly, a small spelling error: “Whole in my bank account” should maybe read “Hole in my bank account”…

Secondly, this is a very interesting issue. Do you have any idea what kind of DLLs that game tried to install?