[Angel Blade]

There's not much to explain. All I can say is that FS2 doesn't run with my windows . I can describe it...Hmm....I can use FRED fine. When I start the FS2 FrontEnd, it works fine. Until I press start. Before, when I would start it, the game would enter, and then it would lockup at the blank screen. Now, after reinstalling mind you, I don't even enter the game. The process is shown in the Task Manager, but it just doesn't start up. I remembered a topic like this that discussed FS2 and XP. However, I searched for it and there were no results. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Especially since I want to enter that oh so great FREDding contest.

[beatspete]

I had this problem a few weeks ago.  I suspected it was the graphics card, what are your system stats?
...I never really managed to solve the problem, I got round it because I upgraded an old computer and now it runs freespace fine, so i dont need to use the one that doesnt like FS.
Cant help much, sorry

[Angel Blade]

Well, forgot to mention System Specs:

AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
256 MB RAM
Direct X 8.1
Nvidia GeForce 2 Ultra
Windows XP (obviously)
Plextor 20x CD-ROM (SCSI mind you, I love this thing)
SCSI drives

That should be all you need...right?

[DragonClaw]

You _could_ try downloading the FS2_open debug version... and run it using that, and if you get an error it should spit it out in the log. That could possibly identify your problem.

No gaurentees it'll work though...

[Vertigo1]

Is there a file called "error.log" in your FS2 dir?  If so, open it up with Notepad and paste in the contents of it (without the stack dump crap.  all we care about is the actual error message itself.)

[Darkage]

You don't like to look at stack dumps?

*runs*

[Angel Blade]

For starters, I can't give you the error log. Well:

1) There is no error log in the first place
2) There is no error message when I try to load FS2
3) FS2 doesn't even start up in the first place for errors to come up

I really want to get back to FS2. Especially for the FRED contest (I've got a special story cookin' up :wink: ) and because there are so many beam capabilities I want to learn and incorporate. Lots of lovely beams.... Newayz, NEED HELP!!!

[IceFire]

Have you done all the usual things?  New/latest drivers, tried WinXP compatability modes, made sure that no mods, pilots, or anything was installed (do check the directories, don't just trust the uinstaller).  Those are the logical things that I'd check.

[Vertigo1]

Did you by chance install XP as an *upgrade* or do a fresh install?

(hint: *NEVER* do the upgrade because any unstability you have with the previous OS *will* stick around.  Always do a fresh install.)

[Angel Blade]

No, I didn't do a clean install. However, there were no problems when I played the game with the other OS, so I doubt that has anything to do with it. AND, when I first tried to play it right after installing XP, it was fine. I dunno. I really want to PLAY:sigh:

[EdrickV]

1. Make sure there are no MOD related files installed. (Even though you reinstalled, it's possible the files were left there. Many uninstallers will not delete files that weren't made by the installer.)

2. Try upgrading your video card drivers, sound card drivers, etc.

3. Go through the launcher's Setup and redo the video card/sound card stuff.

4. There are some errors for which FS2 will not display an error message. They're called GPFs (General Program Faults) also known as the "Illegal Operation" messages that programs tend to pop up. Because FS2 runs fullscreen, you wouldn't be able to see those messages. Instead, FS2 will crash to the desktop and the error message info gets appended to a file called errorlog.txt which is stored in the FS2 main folder and should contain a record of all the GPFs since the last time you deleted the file. (Don't know if the uninstaller will delete it or not.) The error info may be in there even if FS2 crashed before it started the intro movie. Each entry notes the date and time the error occured along with lots and lots of other info.

5. Make sure the WinXP compatability settings for fs2.exe are set right. (Remember, the actual program is not freespace2.exe, it's fs2.exe. Freespace2.exe is the launcher.)

6. If all else fails, uninstall FS2, manually check to make sure the FS2 main folder is gone, if you know how to use Regedit you can see if the registry entries are gone, and then reinstall.

[Anaz]

I would go with the completely clean install. I had a case similar to this when I upgraded to 2k. There was a conflict between versions of files (dlls I think...) between FS2 and Black & White. A fresh install made FS2 work fine (but made B&W crash on saving...).

[Vertigo1]

Just do yourself a favor and just do a clean install of XP.  You can do a clean install, even with the XP upgrade disk.  You just have to have a legit version of a previous version of Windows handy.  When it asks, pop the CD in and let it verify that its an actual legit MS OS, and pop your XP CD back in and let the setup program do the rest.

[Setekh]

I retained FS2 from my 98SE install, but it wouldn't read the CBanims properly; a re-install remedied that. Sorry.