More information, if needed - my DirectX level is 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904), my display adapter is an ATI Radeon 9200. It sure would be nice to be able to join the beta.

I have the latest ATI drivers available via Windows Update. I'll check the ATI website and let you know.

It's not just GalCiv2. I hadn't played GC:AP for about a month, so I tried to fire it up and it failed to start, too. SmartException didn't catch it, though. GC1 doesn't work, and neither does the Political Machine. All of these worked not long ago.

The only things I can think of that I've installed recently (since GC:AP last worked) are:

- Many Microsoft patches automatically downloaded
- New versions of Stardock Central
- A couple of new versions of a utility that checks for new BIOS updates from my motherboard manufacturer
- Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic
- The latest version of SmartException

there seems to be a fair bit of this going on (just check the GC1 forum) and i'm stumped meself. my only weird thing to date has been Medieval Total War crashing on the latest intel drivers, with the advise to roll the drivers back to an earlier version, and sundry other things like upgrading Media Player to version 10. don't know whether there's some problems with DirectX 9c and backwards compatibility, but something *strange* does seem to be going on....



*and* it all seems to have happened after SP2......

FYI, yesterday a worm was released into the internet. PC's that had not been upgraded with the newest Microsoft patchs were in danger of infection.
The issue with this worm, is you don't have to do a thing to get it. If it finds your PC on the internet, it downloads itself and infects the PC. ABC's whole network was taken down by this worm. Unless you are working through a router or very tight firewall, you could have become infected and not known it.
Recommendations from most IT depts is to make sure your antivirus, spyware and windows XP OS are updated to the latest updates.

GW

Evil Roy: I had successfully installed SP2 and had been running for a while with it. But somewhere in the numerous security updates, the install of .NET required for the ATI drivers, and the ATI drivers, my machine started having problems shutting down and booting. On shutdown it would tell me that "component tray" or "connections tray" could not be terminated, and I'd have to use the task manager to force a shutdown. On startup, about 1/3 of the time the start bar was unresponsive, and another 1/3 of the time I could work for a short time, but then no programs would start. I'd like to blame it on SP2, but I don't think that'd get me very far.

GW: Yeah, tell me about it. I spent all afternoon installing Windows 2000 SP4, critical security updates, and then running Symantec Antivirus on my machine at work. Fortunately my home machine is up to date on fixes and virus protection.

I'd like to blame it on SP2, but I don't think that'd get me very far.

i'm doomed then thanx for the heads up though, jmgarth. so it might be a .net problem then? i'm very interested in this dll problem though. any chance of keeping us up to date with your discoveries cari? i iz rushing an offering to the temple as we speak....

I have Windows XP Firewall turned off, I run Zone Alarm instead. And I was running Zone Alarm before Political Machine and Disciples II quit working.

I'm not sure what Disciples II does with internet access. The symptom is that it puts up a small menu that lets you choose between starting two different versions of the game, Gallean's Return or Rise of the Elves, and no matter which one you choose the menu goes away for a half a second, then reappears, but the game doesn't start. Superficially that looked like the symptom I was having with GC:AP, where the menu would appear but when I tried to start the game it would crash. The symptom with Celtic Kings was similar, a menu would appear with some text about the game, but if I tried to click to start the game or to read the help, nothing would happen.

I'll try downloading Political Machine and see if it still fails.

I re-downloaded and reinstalled Political Machine and it works OK. So far.

well, let's see. Check your start Menu properties by Right clicking on the start bar, then selecting advanced. I am hoping that XP Home has access to the administrative tools group, if it does if you scroll down the list of displayed start menu Items, on should be administrative Tools. Select show in all profiles and see if you start menu has that group in it.
Off hand I don't remember the name of the MSC command, will look it up tonight and post it if you are unable to find it. Also check the local group policy msc, the command line is gpedit.msc, type that into the run line and see if a group policy msc comes up. If it does, check the admin templates for local pc and see if they have disabled the ability to see and use the administrative tools. If it is disable, reenable and follow the steps at the begining of this post to see them. Once you can get the admin tools group up there is a msc link there that says services, scroll through the services listing looking for microsoft firewall, and securtiy panel and have it stop the serivce, this will disable the firewall and security panel until you can test the programs you are having problems with. you can also disable the service through the properties tab.
Be carefull though, if you turn off a critical service, the system may lock or shut down.


Found this on the microsoft technet page:

Administrative Tools can also be opened from Microsoft Management Console, or by clicking Start, clicking Control Panel, clicking Performance and Maintenance, and then clicking Administrative Tools.

GW