Damn you Windows Vista! (part 342)

[fairline]

OK, I fancied giving MGE a whirl after a long period of abstinence, and I find that the cpu-hack exe for MGE crashes on my Vista 64 system. Anyone have the same problem and can offer advice and/or commiserations?

[Harry Tuttle]

Commiserations. I just bought Windows 7 Professional with XP support. I'll let you know how it goes.

[fairline]

Good luck!

[curtsibling]

Gareth - My advice would be to buy a 2nd hand computer with XP for CIV use and nowt else.

And don't worry about XP updates...I haven't updated since 2006, with no adverse effects.

I'll never use that abyssal Vista nightmare or sinister Winblows 7...Nevah!

[AGRICOLA]

I suggested the same thing some time ago. Gareth informed me that his broom closet computer set-up absolutely, positively has no desk space for a second PC.

[curtsibling]

Faced with no CIV in my life, I would make the room...

[AGRICOLA]

I had a terrible thought . . . . . will Civ2 die not because of lack of interest but because it may not run on future operating systems?

In the next few years there should be XP machines available for a pittance as people upgrade to W7 after skipping Vista. Get one and use it for a doorstop until needed.

[McMonkey]

Or buy a cheap copy of XP and run it alongside Vista/Windows 7 using Virtual PC. I need to get around to doing this as there are several old games that don't run on Vista that I would like to have a blast on from time to time.

[Harry Tuttle]

I got Win 7 Professional for about $130 at Costco. I have yet to install it, but I imagine that the XP option will allow Civ 2 to run. If not, Freeciv will be my future.

[curtsibling]

Oddly, tonight my computer flagged up an icon to run windows update for the first
time in years (literally)...Naturally, I ignored this laughable feature and turned off
the notifications. I have avoided Window's lunatic influnce since 2006 and intend
to continue this trend...Vive la XP if it allows CIV modding to continue...!

[fairline]

I always find Windows updates hugely entertaining, in a 'I wonder if my PC will still work after this happens' kind of way. My favourite was an XP update which disagreed with my AVG anti-virus software to the point of stopping windows loading and stalling at a desktop with no icons or menus present. Great stuff! Well done Gates, I remember saying to myself. Or words to that effect...

Still, I like Vista a lot more than XP, and it seems more stable in general. It's a huge pain in the arsse getting round the laughably restricive security settings (by default you have virtually no rights to save or edit files!), but once you overcome this the only real bugbears are the backwards-compatibility problems which are very rarely solved by running in XP mode. There are usually fixes online though; these are invariably user fixes rather than official MS fixes, obviously

[Catfish]

OK, I fancied giving MGE a whirl after a long period of abstinence, and I find that the cpu-hack exe for MGE crashes on my Vista 64 system. Anyone have the same problem and can offer advice and/or commiserations?

Whose CPU-fix are you using? Timbatron's patched civ2 executable or Till's all-version patcher? Are you using MastermindX's 64-bit patcher? Both Till and MastermindX are still active on CFC. If you have problems with their patches/patchers, post where they can see it.

CPU fix thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=112086
64-bit patcher thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193215

[DarkCloud]

So how does vanilla Civ II work in Win 7.

Commisserations on Vista. I foolishly purchased a vista computer in 2007 and have never stopped cursing it- it is the worst computer I've ever bought since a 1996 compaq that kept melting down. It is possible that even the old Apple IIs I had worked better, except the comparison isn't really fair given what Vista is expected to do versus what they are expected to do. (!) My quality of life improved drastically after I bought a tiny netbook this summer and have used it constantly because it has XP. The Vista machine sits unused and I utilize the happy little netbook.

[fairline]

Whose CPU-fix are you using? Timbatron's patched civ2 executable or Till's all-version patcher? Are you using MastermindX's 64-bit patcher? Both Till and MastermindX are still active on CFC. If you have problems with their patches/patchers, post where they can see it.

CPU fix thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=112086
64-bit patcher thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193215

Timbatron's patched exe. Hadn't realised there were 2 others involved with patching, but it's kind of academic in terms of asking for help on CFC, as I can't log in anymore. I've e-mailed the site owners twice, but never received a response unfortunately.

I don't think not being able to play MGE is going to worry me too much though, as ToT still works. Also been playing Civ IV recently, or at least the superb ' history of three kingdoms' mod for Civ IV. This game sh1ts from a considerable height over any version of civ2 and is highly moddable. I guess the down-side is the degree of effort required to make a full-on mod as opposed to a simple vanilla scenario in civ IV.

[fairline]

So how does vanilla Civ II work in Win 7.

.......a 1996 compaq that kept melting down......

I had an early noughties Compaq that did mush the same, partcurlarly with civ hogging all available cpu cycles when waiting for input; hence my reluctance to subject my current computer to any such shennanigins.