RON won't work and screws up my other programs too

[Alinestra Covelia]

Hi all.

I bought RON today but it'll only be a matter of time before I return it. The sucker not only will not run, but the installing of DirectX v9 fuct up all my other old games too.

I had a grand old game called X Wing vs TIE Fighter which ran fine before. Now, the .dll files are all in the wrong places.

I copied and pasted the .dll files from the DirectX subdirectory into my windows system files but the DDRAW.DLL file refused to run my old program.

This is a rip off and it has ruined a lot of my enjoyment. Not only will the game not work but it is preventing me from playing games totally unrelated to it. Microsoft lives up to its usual reputation for advanced craptitude.

I've already uninstalled RON and will be returning it tomorrow. Now can anybody tell me how to get DirectX v9 off my computer and restored to its previous settings? RON may be a great game and all but if it resorts to killing off all my old ones, I'm afraid my loyalties to Brian Reynolds only goes so far.

If I download and install an older version of DirectX v9 will that work?

I wish I were a man sometimes. And furthermore that Microsoft were a man too tied over a barrel with its pants around its ankles. It deserves nothing less.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, problem solved. I tried a system restore to two weeks ago, and that took a nice 15 minutes to complete but was ultimately fruitless. I even yanked out all the .dll files and hid them to see what would happen, to no avail.

In the end, I hit upon an idea - I took out the version of DirectX on the XvT CD ROM and tried to install it.

Lucasarts seems to like giving people a choice. Even though the computer said "You have a later version already installed" it still gave me the option of saying "Yet but it's crap and please give me back the old one".

Reinstall worked out fine and RON has been well and truly expunged from my system.

I've given the CD to my brother (in flagrant violation of the copyright, which says it shall not be lent or borrowed - so sue me, Microsoft) and he has played the game for all of two hours and declared it to be subpar as far as RTS goes.

So I guess it's going back to the EB first thing tomorrow morning.

Alas! not an auspicious start to my Brian Reynolds experience. And thus are the mighty fall'n.

[Skanky Burns]

Hmmm, I didn't think directx could be removed. Apparently overwritten is a valid option though.
Glad to hear your system has recovered, at least.