I'm losing all hope here...

[NightFall Myriad]

Ok here's my problem:

About a week ago I noticed that when I started BG up and tryied to load a game it would display the usual messages like:

Loading Game...
Loading Area...

Then the game would come up and freeze.
Then the loading screen would pop up again!

Clearing Game Data...
Loading Game
Clearing Game Data...

etc...

It got to a point that I couldn't even start a new game!!!

So I said to myself "Fine I'll just reinstall it."

Unfotunately, the saved games aren't the only things messed up. The uninstall won't work either. I deleted the root directory and all BG related things (SK, patches etc.).

When I put the CD in to re-install it, I WOULD GET THE UNINSTALL. Then it would zip by and have not done a thing.

I went into control panel and no matter what I do I can't make my system think that I've uninstalled it! IT'S GONE, WHY CANT I REINSTALL IT??

I'm about to go mad because my whole system has been messed up ever since my dad installed his stupid firewall. I can't play internet games anymore, most of my net applications don't work and my sister's stuff is screwy too.

What can I do?

SOMEONE HELP ME!!!

[Aegis]

I had a problem just like that, and the only way I managed to fix it was to completly reboot the comp. Not a fun experiance...

[Craig]

Been there, Thunked about, Killed me self, Wiped computer

[Quitch]

A program called [url="http://www.jv16.org"]RegCleaner[/url] is the solution to your problem. Install it, run it, and select all the references to Baldur's Gate II in the list, then wipe them. This should clean out all the registry entries to the game and allow you to install.

[NightFall Myriad]

Thanks guys I'll give the regcleaner a try

I don't know how to wipe the files any other way.

[NightFall Myriad]

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!


It still won't work.
Now there absolutely no references to BG on my computer yet my comp still thinks its installed.

When I pop the 1st CD in it doesn't read INSTALL it reads PLAY.

When I click on PLAY I get a message saying "Since this is your first time playihng BG you'll have to configure your ..."

If I open my CD drive and go directly to the setup on the CD the installation wizard comes up (is that an inside joke or a coincidence?) and tells me that it will begin the setup for me to install.

When it finishes, I get a window that asks me if I want to remove all the components of BG. I opened the installer and I get the uninstall. WTF???!!!

If I click ok the bar finishes really quickly and the then nothing happens.


Any help now guys?

[Aegis]

My only remaining advice is to wipe your comp. I had to, and so did Craig apparently.

[NightFall Myriad]

How would you propose that I do that?

[GrimReaper]

That's a long and annoying process. There still has to be something in your registry that's confusing the system. I don't know what but there has to be something. If you do want to format your drive I'd recommend that you look for (and print) a tutorial somewhere. Try [url="http://www.tweak3d.net"]Tweak3d[/url]. Remember that you will not have ANYTHING on your hard drive after the format, so find a way to back up anything you want to keep.

[UserUnfriendly]

beg, borrow a cd rom burner, then burn cd roms of all the junk you want.

be sure to have the installer for your internet connections. you're running win 98, right? you need to create in the control panel new boot disk. this is the key to reinstalling os.

at this point you should be prepared to

get a ghosting application, like ghost or some other app that will take a binary image of your hd and create a file of it, and prep a extended partition to hold the file, using partition magic or fdisk....if you are worried about wiping info using fdsik, you might get linux fdisk, far harder to use but will repartition drive without erasing....ya need to burn a binary of the new os after installing internet and all preferences and creating a minimun known good install of the os... I have one, and I can reinstall the os in under 5 minutes...

if any of this crap does not make sense, don't try it at home, kiddies, go to your savvy guru frined, and offer to treat him/her to lunch at really good place if they help you. This was how I used to be treated to lunch once a week when my friends and co workers were SOL at home....

sorry, guys, I don't like to brag...yes I do... but I was pulling major money at my last company and was hired for my understanding of servers, netware, and my expertise in reinstalling os and fixing problems with 95, 3.1 and 98....


one last thing to possibly try...if you feel really savvy, you might open up regedit and try searching for the right keys... as per biowares troubleshooting page....ONLY if you KNOW how to create using regedit a set of static hives and keys...but do not try if you're not sure....

[NightFall Myriad]

Its my dad's comp...

[Aegis]

Then you shouldn't wipe it. Although, if you do, most computers come with a disk called a "Quick Restore" This magical disk, when placed in the computer, will reinstall the entire system. I've had to do it twice since last march. Very annoying, but it was needed.

[NightFall Myriad]

Well I don't know what I did but its installing

thank you so much guys!!!

back to soloing through as a mage

do wild mages get the extra spell each level?
or is that just specialty mages?

[Meerlight]

Yep, Wild Mages do get the extra spells.
I reason IMO why they are the best spellcasters.

[UserUnfriendly]

sorry, meerlight, sorcs are the best.... though wildmage comes close with cntrl H unto death....

and you can dual the bugers, I think... if not, use sk to multi wild mage/fighter...read my and craigs post about sorc fighter... the best cheese since wizardslayer thief...

[UserUnfriendly]

hey. I know what happened!!!!


Win 98 and family of os uses a dynamic and static method of building the registry....


some of the registry is in static files, called hives, and most of it is loaded into ram as the actual working registry. much like ini file setting of global variables, the hives are used to build the registry on the fly and sometimes it requires several reboots to fully update the static registry files. also there is a very dangerous tech which regclean uses...

it is suppose to flush invalid keys or references that no longer exists, but the best way to do this is to bring up the computer in dos mode and use built into os tools that actually will do a dos mode verbose search and force the dos app to actually search for and rebuild the registry based on installed files....this is a dangerous way to do it, based on drive and install size you can crash the dos app, in which case you are totally screwed...

regclean is a win 98 app that does that in a more stable protected mode enviroment, but it sometimes requires several flushes to update itself...

in another words, anytime you fool around with registry, reboot several times for stability!!

[Quitch]

I agree here.

RegClean from Microsoft is useful. Microsoft don't put it out officially anymore, and I'm not even sure they have the latest version on their own site. Think I got it off ZDNet.

RegCleaner can do a search of the registry and flush out further entries (set it up for automatic cleaning and extra powerful OLE searching).

EasyCleaner will flush out the orphan entries left behind by the previous two.

OLEClean finishes up by removing OLE entries.

If using all those tools (search for those names somewhere like Google) doesn't solve your problem, THEN we consider other alternatives. A complete system wipe is rather drastic .