isuspm.exe, ~e5.0001, and what crashed Civ.

[seebs]

So, Civ4 crashed, and this time, it hung badly enough that I could look at what was crashing.

Lo and behold: It was isuspm.exe, and ~e5.0001.exe.

Which is to say, it was two components of the Macrovision copy protection scheme.

I have available to me at this time a theory about why these crashes have been so bad for retail box users, and why beta testers might not have seen them. That theory is that the code that tries to integrate the copy protection tightly with the game so casual users can't disable it easily is resulting in crashes.

[ElConejo]

Although I have not seen the other program, ~e5.0001.exe is one that has been used since Civ3 (at least.. i didnt play the first ones.. ) and there was nothing wrong with it there. Do you mean that the combination is what is crashing? Or is it that the programs are acting weird?

[seebs]

I just noticed that this program was present in some version during my worst crash, and it occurs to me that problems with the copy protection code are hardly unheard of (I've been seeing them since something like 1990, when Populous for the Amiga wouldn't work on 68020 systems because of the copy protection code), and it might explain why so many reviewers didn't have any problems.

[ElConejo]

Interesting, I will surely like to hear more whenever you find out more

[JohnUghrin]

Anything further on this?

My installation just won't go past that multilingual splash screen, and I keep seeing this ~e5.0001 thing, too. Something in the back of my mind says that the copy protection is flaking out about my having both a CDROM and a 'burner on the same machine. 'Cause the industy just knows that there aren't any legitimate reasons to have such a crazy thing like that lying around.

Just a feeling, tho...