[psonar]

Ok, I installed FS2 retail core and the FSO Windows executables and I think whatever other files seemed necessary (I didn't want FS1 or any of the additional mods and whatnot - I have limited bandwidth, so I was going minimalist this time).

I'm on an old Windows XP laptop that has run Freespace 2 Open before, but it was removed a while ago and I'm now re-installing.

When I try to run the fs2_open_3_6_9.exe  I am unable to select single player, and when I enter a pilot name, I get the following message:

Warning
Failed to save pilot file. You may be out of disk space. If so, you should press ALT-TAB, free up some disk space, then come back and chose retry.

I've got about 13 gigs free, so its obviously something else.

I found a few references to this kind of error, but no solutions, so I figured created a help topic was warranted.  I do apologize if this was covered in one of the 5 or 6 documents/topics that I tried to check before posting.

I'm ready to answer whatever followup questions you all may have.

Thanks!

Edit:
I tried the new 3_6_10 exe and it let me into freespace, so I exited and tried 3_6_9 again and was able to get it working (after 1 crash).  I'm not sure what happened, but if others get this error, trying out 3_6_10 may be a workaround.

[Jeff Vader]

This does pop up quite regularly. Usually the issue occurs because the person has installed FSO to My Documents or the desktop. Both of these locations prevent the game engine from saving the pilot files. If you've installed the game to either of those locations, move it, for example, to C:\Games\Freespace2 or something like that. Just move the folder. It'll work that way. No need to reinstall.

[psonar]

I edited my post above saying that its now working with 3_6_9 mysteriously after logging in with 3_6_10.

I'm familiar with the no spaces thing and installed to C:\Freespace so that was never the issue...

[Jeff Vader]

Hmm. Another explanation that I found by doing a quick search, was that you might have been missing the \freespace\data\players\single folder for some reason. Creating it manually might have helped. But, if a 3.6.10 build helped, good.