Problems with Windows 7(64 bit)

[smithk58]

Hi, i'm having some issues getting my C&C4 running on Windows 7 OS(64 bit). The other thread with someone having problems with 64 bit seemed like a different issue then mine, so I thought I would create a new thread :)

First off, here are the error messages I receive, they appear as soon as the game is run:

This screen appears, stays up for about half a second
http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x366/smithk58/error3.png

This prompt appears after the previous screen crashes
http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x366/smithk58/error.png

After I click 'ok' on the previous error, this comes up:
http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x366/smithk58/error2.jpg

Now then, the most obvious reason for it not working is i'm running Windows 7 64 bit OS, instead of 32 bit. Normally I would be satisfied with this, but from what i've read there isn't a separate C&C4 for 32 and 64 bit, which leads me to believe I should be able to get this running on my 64 bit OS if other people have (which they have).

Basic Info:

I can repeat the error consistently by running the game. The error pops up about half a second after the C&C4 logo pops up.

I live in the USA, and bought the game from Walmart(disc). There is no information on the case that suggests it wouldn't work on Windows 7 64 bit, in fact, it specifically says it should work on Windows 7. (thanks EA?...)

PC Specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU -- P7450 @ 2.13GHz (2cpus)
RAM: 4,096 MB (4 gigs)
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 9800M GS, 512MB
Direct X Version: DirectX 11

All specs check out as far as I can tell according to the specifications on the case.

EA's support:
I was simply told to try to return the game to where I bought it (which is impossible to do when it's been opened), or send it to them for an unopened replacement that I can return.
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So, at this point i'm annoyed with EA to say the least. Perhaps there's some sort of law for false advertising that it's compatible with Windows 7 on the case? :rolleyes: (joking, don't ban me)

Either way, if anyone here could help me get this running it would be immensely appreciated! I really don't feel like spending more money to send this to EA for a replacement that Walmart will accept...

[phoenixcrap]

i am on the online support with them and there is no help. even though the back of the box says win7 it does not include the 64bit version. there seems to be no fix for this. the problem i have atm is the delay between responses and the fact that this problem has been around for 6 months at least and no fix has been given. i would be over the moon for a third party to release a patch to fix this as long as i finally get to play this game

[smithk58]

Ah, I was afraid of that. Thank you very much for the response :).

I really do hope someone from EA reads this though. There are plenty of great game making companies to choose from and i've never been one to play favorites, but i'll definitely think of this the next time I see EAs name on a game i'm considering buying :|

[phoenixcrap]

the back of the game box lists win7 as a "required os" however this does not extend to 64 bit version. ea also says they do not actually support win7. in other words read the fine print and goto ea support before buying your next game. it annoys me that win7 is listed but not supported.

[smithk58]

Yes Phoenix, I read every last bit of fine print on the back of the case before buying the game, as I always do :).

However, EA is more then capable of testing a game on both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows 7. If it doesn't work on one, they are plenty capable of printing that it doesn't work for that one on the case. I shouldn't have to go online before buying the game and do research on whether or not the game works as specified on the case.

Therefore, as far as i'm concerned it was either done on purpose in the hopes people wouldn't want to put the effort into sending the game back to them for a copy they could return (they make money), or the mistake was made out of pure laziness (most likely). Either way, it's inexcusable from a "professional" company. I also highly doubt anyone was even reprimanded for making the mistake, even if the problem made it to someone who gave a damn.

There are a number of other ways they could have appropriately refunded people for their mistake. Instead, they thought it best to do it the way that costs them the least (and chances are actually MADE them money).

I've seen other big game companies make mistakes before, but this is by far the worst i've seen a company handle a mistake they made. My only hope is the several hundred (or perhaps thousand) people who ran into the issue make sure it costs EA more in the long run than it would have if they would have handled their mistake more appropriately.

[EddySaf]

Now then, the most obvious reason for it not working is i'm running Windows 7 64 bit OS, instead of 32 bit. Normally I would be satisfied with this, but from what i've read there isn't a separate C&C4 for 32 and 64 bit, which leads me to believe I should be able to get this running on my 64 bit OS if other people have (which they have).
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601)


Yes I have this and had no problems installing C&C4 and I have been playing for the past year with no problems.
Windows 7 Professional Version 6.1 (Build 7601: Service pack 1)
System Type: 64-bit Operating System

Note mine is the the same as yours BUT as I have the Professional Version note at this link that I additionally have Windows XP Mode which I think just might be required in your case, well it's worth a thought.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

On that link I note a link to Windows XP Mode and where you might be able to download and install it, maybe for free. Here is the link direct to that page where you can download and install it. Maybe give it a try and see what happens and I think all that will happen is that you may have a Windows XP Mode added to your Windows 7.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

If the above solves your problem then maybe Microsoft did not tell the Devs of C&C4 that Microsoft did not include Windows XP Mode in the Home Premium version. Well it's a thought and Windows 7 is relatively new to C&C4.

CIRE could you please look into the above with Support and I noted that some people do have problems with Windows 7 on 64-bit operating systems with other C&C games, where the lack of XP Mode within the Home Premium version might be the problem.

[CNCGeek101]

Please make sure all Windows updates are installed. I myself have Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and have no issues with C&C 4. Try launching the game with the "Run As Administrator" option. That should solve most of your problems.

[EddySaf]

Please make sure all Windows updates are installed. I myself have Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and have no issues with C&C 4. Try launching the game with the "Run As Administrator" option. That should solve most of your problems.

Thanks Geek for your response and that blows my thought out the window. If you and I have no issues with C&C4 on our versions of Windows 7 64-bit Operating System then they similarly should have no issues. If they do have issues then it is something at their end and they should try doing as you suggested.

[EA_CIRE]

I got C&C4 running on Win7 64bit as well without any problems. I think that the system requirements excluded 64bit operatingsystems. But that is something for the EA support - It's just not my field of operations.

[CNCGeek101]

I would make sure you all have the latest Microsoft .NET framework versions installed. Since the thread on the old forums is so old I do recall APOC mentioning keeping .Net Frameworks all versions available updated as it alleviates a lot of problems for people.

[EddySaf]

I would make sure you all have the latest Microsoft .NET framework versions installed. Since the thread on the old forums is so old I do recall APOC mentioning keeping .Net Frameworks all versions available updated as it alleviates a lot of problems for people.

On having a quick look at my update history and I've had about 8 .NET Framework updates. Most were security related but 2 appeared to be an update to the .NET Framework and not related to security. I like to have all my hardware and sofware updates. When I got my new computer I was quite surprised on how many updates my new computer required, and there were updates after the updates when I restarted the computer after the updates.

[smithk58]

Ah very cool, thanks for all the responses! I don't have time tonight, but i'll be sure to explore some of those options in the morning. I've already tried about all I could with the compatibility thing/running in admin though (that's my first option for fixing older games). I'll take a look into the other two proposed options tomorrow though :)

[phoenixcrap]

i am sorry to take so long in repsonding but work is tough. anyway I am sick of people assuming its cos i haven't updated win7. it has every last avilable update and still no luck. i have run in every compatability mode, run as administrator, disabled firewalls and antiviruses just in case. i have tried everything except opening up the launcher to rewrite it and I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THAT.

everyone says it works on mine..... well you see how people do a dxdiag when we have a problem? how bout you do one so we can try to find a common fault with ours. it could be duel screens causing the issue.... highly unlikely but it could be. there is a myriad of possibilities that could make it not work and simply stating "it works on mine" does so very little to help us.

am going to try win xp mode but it says its not for home premium. will try anyway

[phoenixcrap]

i cannot use xp mode...... just wish i could figure out what is the problem

[smithk58]

Ok, sorry about the slow update, my finals were kicking my butt. Anyways, My .Net stuff is fully updated and Windows XP Mode isn't compatible with my version of Windows 7 unfortunately. So neither of those are fixes.

I'm able to upgrade my Windows 7 to the professional version for free, but I would have to go through a ridiculous amount of trouble to do it (move 300gb of movies onto my laptop so I can reformat my HD from fat 32, back up my stuff, etc).

Overall, it just doesn't seem worth the effort of doing it...but I suppose if I do go through with the upgrade and it solves this problem it could benefit a lot of people...so perhaps i'll look into doing it later tonight. I was thinking about setting up a partition for linux anyways.

It would definitely be interesting if the difference between it working had something to do with W7 Professional over W7 Home Premium. From there I would expect the EA support more than capable of diagnosing the exact issue (or ask W7 support).

[phoenixcrap]

the thing i hate is that the back of the packet sayswin7 is supported and amd64x2 processor is required..... you'd think they'd put2 and 2 together and say to themselves hey maybe we need to support win 7 64bit...

anyway on to the fun stuff..... this game is one of the few i cannot get to work so people please tell us what you are running, processor graphics ram everything. there might be a problem with an ati graphics driver that won't convert 32bit games for the 64bit processor.... it might be a duel screen issue, it could be an update that you have done but we haven't(ie9 is still buggy so not touching it yet) there might be an antivirus that we use that doesn't allow a certain script to be written so it will work on certain comps and not others.... the list goes on... please for the love of ascension through the scrin tower put in details, not just "it works on mine" because that does absolutely nothing to help us. in fact its annoying me to tears

[EddySaf]

All I can say is what I have already posted before in the other thread about this. Really you should be contacting EA Support, see the "Contact Us" on the page via this link and it is them that you should be sending your whole script too.
http://support.ea.com/

[phoenixcrap]

ok so you don't read all the posts... cos the second one i posted and it says that ea support was useless. they do not have any idea and they do not "support" win 7 at all even though it says on the back of the box it is supported.... nice to know i got people who read the entire post to see what the whole story is... thank you so very much for the information you gave it was great about a week ago when i tried it... now i have come to the forums trying to figure out if anyone else has an idea that is why i posted here...... i am sorry if this seems abrupt but why the hell do people not read?

[EddySaf]

Apparently you don't read all the posts and we do NOT have any problems with C&C4 on our Windows 7 64-bit Operating System. Maybe you should seriously consider that there is something else at your end that is causing your problem. This is my last post regarding this and you need to contact EA Support via the link I provided and tell them that you are still having a problem.

[phoenixcrap]

ok this is a support part..... can anyone tell me where the support is? i have had the usual run in compatability mode and run in admin which is great.... i tried them and it still does not work.. i contacted ea support FIRST then after it didn't work i contacted them again. TWICE i was told this os is not supported and they could do nothing more. so by saying you don't have a problem does nothing in the way of support.. that is the forum i posted under.... not any other topic.. SUPPORT. the reason i posted here is ea had exhausted their avenues and I was hoping to find someone who encountered the same problem and had fixed it. then i get this bs of people NOT reading posts. the problem is ours... i do not understand why it works for most and not for others... that is why i am here... to sit there and spam this page or any other telling me to do things i have already said i have tried is nothing less than unhelpful. at worst its wasting my time and the space on here for people to respond with an intelligent answer.

I think its great you got it to work on your computer but this is a SUPPORT forum to HELP with program faults when ea have not been able too, either through a lack of care(sometimes you think the worst first) or just through a lack of resources to find the problem. their test machines may be EXACTLY like yours and works fine, because they have not encountered the problem they cannot diagnose or fix it. the people posting in this thread are trying to reach out to those who have encountered this problem and have somehow fixed it. it may have been a reg edit, config edit, they may have rolled back to a previous ati graphics driver... the list is extensive so we ask humbly please keep these pages open for SUPPORT.
I myself have 2 transcripts from ea. both went the same way and they exhausted their knowledgebase. I have run this under every compatability mode win 7 64bit has and i have tried them all both with and without admin rights. i have uninstalled and reinstalled trying for compatility modes there as well. i have enabled and disabled windows features and my antivirus and firewall just to be safe. I have tried all of these things with no luck so far. please if anyone can HELP then please post something for us to try. if not then move to someone you can help.

[smithk58]

Phoenix, relax man, I personally find it beneficial that a couple people posted that they managed to get it working on 64 bit, that way I know there IS a way for me to get it working, I just have to find it. They also gave some valuable insight as to what exactly could be causing it, which narrows it down :)

Now then, what Phoenix is really asking for (although very rudely), is for one (or several) of you that managed to get it working on 64 bit to post more of your system information. Please do so at your earliest convenience.

As we speak i'm moving around/backing things up so I can upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. If i'm able to run the game on that then we can be sure it's some difference between Windows Home Premium and Professional. From here, it shouldn't be very hard for Microsoft Support to tell us what's going on.

If it doesn't work on my Windows 7 Professional for me then i'll create a partition for Windows XP and see if it works there for me (I would truly hope so).


Edit: Dang, just did a bit of re-reading and saw that CNCGeek101 mentioned his works with Windows 7 Home Premium. So, now i'm thinking my upgrade is going to be in vein. Either way, perhaps upgrading will get me whatever update I may have missed (although i'm fairly certain i'm up-to-date on everything).

[phoenixcrap]

first of all i do apologise for being rude but it is irritating to see more people telling me to do the same thing i have already than people offering help.
i also thought i saw on one of these posts someone saying they had win7 64bit home and they got it working.... the upgrade may work and if it does please let me know. but if i find the post again i will try to link it as we know its not the os but a driver issue. i cannot figure out why it won't work. the cnc3 launcher works perfect everytime for me. the first decade does too. all my ea games come up in task manager as *32 and i assume this to mean 32bit. it is just this one.... going to try something else... if this doesn't work then i deleted the wrong thingy lol
smith let me know how you progress as i am very invested(as you can tell from my irritability lol) in getting this game running

[phoenixcrap]

http://www.commandandconquer.com/forums/showthread.php?48-If-you-have-C-amp-C-4-Launcher-Issues-READ-THIS/page2
3rd last post from the bottom seems promising.thought i would share this just in case it helps

[phoenixcrap]

one more thing i should note.... during the install it doesn't ask for my code like all other ea games do..... could this be the problem i am facing? if the launcher requires a code to be written correctly and i don't put in a code then it is not written correctly, i hope people see my logic there
i am trying to install in vista compatability as admin this time... takes 30 minutes per install check uninstall and then i have a notepad of things i am doing to make sure i don't do anything twice lol

[phoenixcrap]

WOW i got ea support one more time i thought... talked to someone with sn of stevie.... he actually looked at a dxdiag, and the error screenshot... he is recommending a manual install which i had overlooked.... will see how it goes
am happy already that i got someone who went that little bit further

[smithk58]

Eureka! The link you gave solved my problem Phoenix. I haven't worked out all of the kinks just yet, but it seems to have been an issue with my Trend Micro not allowing some file that C&C4.exe was creating at run time, administrator access.

Edit: Strangely enough after I reactivated everything I turned off it still runs without me having had to add exceptions to anything.

[phoenixcrap]

ok dude run me through what you did step by step pretty please.... i cannot figure it out lol

[phoenixcrap]

screenshots or vid would be useful too

[smithk58]

Well, what I did might not work for you if your not getting the exact error messages I was having (the ones I posted). If those were what your getting, then just open up all of your firewalls/anti virus programs and disable ALL of them. Make sure you keep track of what you turn off though so you can turn them back on later.

Every time you disable something on them try running C&C4, that should show you exactly what ones blocking it. Once you figure out which one is blocking it you just need to find the "exceptions" list for that program and add **** too it until it works lol. Most likely you would have to add some of the files listed in that link you gave me.

Strangely enough, after I successfully ran the program once it runs fine now even with all of my firewalls/anti virus programs back on. I'm going to restart now and see if it still works.

[EddySaf]

I personally find it beneficial that a couple people posted that they managed to get it working on 64 bit, that way I know there IS a way for me to get it working, I just have to find it. They also gave some valuable insight as to what exactly could be causing it, which narrows it down :)

I have the disk version of C&C4. I put the disk in and installed the game on my new 64-bit operating system computer which has Windows 7 64-bit. The game installed exactly like it did on my old computer which has Windows XP. I did nothing different and in each case the game installed easy and worked great, obviously on my old computer it took longer to instal and the graphics were not so good as I had to use the lowest settings for the game. Think about it and consider that your problem may have nothing to do with Windows 7 64-bit but something else and you may need technicians at Support to find out what the something else is at your end that is causing your problem.

[smithk58]

As I said in the post below yours Eddy I managed to fix my problem :). I'm personally not yet educated enough in computers to know precisely what happened, but the link posted by Phoenix has some good guesses as to why.

Supposedly the C&C4.exe creates a dynamic file in your temp folder at run time. He speculated it was something anti-piracy related, but wasn't sure. Either way, he guessed that there were two possible reasons it wasn't working:

1. For one reason or another, something (firewall/other software) was interfering with the creation of the dynamic file, thus is was corrupted and not recognized as being compatible, or something to this effect.

2. The file that was being created on run time didn't have the proper access to do what it needed to do, even though you gave the regular C&C4.exe access, you had to give this other file full access as well.

Strangely enough, all I had to do is get that file to run unimpeded one time, after which it ran perfectly without needing to be on any exception lists.

[phoenixcrap]

hahahahahaha i disabled my stuff not turned them off.... trend micro was the problem... YYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works it works
long live kane,

[coolmime12]

the way i fixed it is by running as an administrator after that it started to work

[TinkleBell]

Hi all, I also had the same issues, whenever i started C&C 4 from Origin's application.
I took the following steps to resolve it.
1. Update to Microsoft's .Net Framework 4.0 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992&displaylang=en
2. Disable Antivirus and Firewall
3. Go to the folder that holds your C&C game, the folder that holds CNC4.exe
4. Right click that and "Run as Administrator"

After you are able to view the options screen in the game, just quit and *remember* to enable your Antivirus and Firewall. You dont need to turn them off for subsequent runs of the game.

Sources:
- experience
- http://www.commandandconquer.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2942.html