Game will not start - Windows 8.1

[hollmt]

Good Evening,

I am having difficulties running the game in Windows 8.1

I have confirmed Windows Media Player is installed correctly and all updates are installed to the latest patch.
When I click "Play Distant Worlds" (and I do run as administrator) a small pop up appears with the "Distant Worlds Universe"
for a few seconds and this disappears and.....then nothing happens at all.

I have gone to the startup.ini and changed the value of play movie from 1 to 0 already as well. This apparently is an
issue with 8.1 only as I had another laptop that I recently returned with 8.1 and the same issue occurred. The game
runs smoothly in windows 8.

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thanks.

[Fu]

Hi there,

I have exactly the same symptoms with mine which I installed from disc today. I'm running 8.0 so I might not be just an 8.1 issue.

I think my problem might have something to do with steam because I didn't go through steam. With the physical disk installation I seem to have by-passed steam all together.

Anyway, good luck mate.

[Fu]

Hollmt I got mine running by manually installing the xnafx40_redist.msi

Since we had the same behaviour when trying to start it maybe that could work for you to.

[hollmt]

Thanks for the suggestion Fu.

I manually downloaded xnafx40_redist.msi and it is still a no go
on the game. The splash screen comes up and then vanishes and nothing
happens. The download of my game is directly from Matrix. I
think my next step is to uninstall universe, and then maybe start
an install of the first game and try and run that and move forward from
there.

Any other suggestions from anyone, would be appreciated.

[hollmt]

So, interesting...I installed distant worlds base game, shakturi,
legends and then shadows. updated game, made sure the other stuff
was installed, and the game loads up fine.

So, now I will try installing Universe again knowing that
everything to run this game should be installed...

[hollmt]

And now Universe runs with the other 4 games installed.

[Major SNAFU_M]

I am having this exact same problem with Win7 Enterprise 64-bit system. I only have DWU, so I cannot try the same remedy as described above.

Any other ideas, anyone?

[VPaulus]

Please follow the suggestions on this thread:
tm.asp?m=2414049

[Dagfinn]

I have the same problems as above

Iv tried all the things in VPaulus's link. No luck... [&:]

I used to run DWU With no problems in win7.

[Bingeling]

Try win 7 compability mode? (at least it is quick to test...).

If you own the previous versions, try to install them as one of the posters above did. That hinted at some redistributable in those version fixing things.

[Dagfinn]

Have tried With compability mode. Same problem.

And I do not own anything but DWU.

[Bingeling]

Install through steam? Install outside steam (if you got it matrix bought)?

[Dagfinn]

Matrix all the way [&o]

Steam is the devil reincarnated... [:-]

[Bingeling]

Well, if you can get your steam key, install a working DWU through it, and then get your matrix version going, you can always uninstall steam and pretend it never happened.

[Dagfinn]

Hmm, Im not sure I understand.

Anyeay, Im not inclined to install any Steam applications whatsoever.

[VPaulus]

@Dagfinn
Do you have any crash dump file?
Are you running any mod?

[Dagfinn]

No mods, clean install several times[:(]

Nope, Im not able to find any crash dump. Have tried as prescribed in the above mentioned link

EDIT: Btw, are the instructions in the link adapted to win8?

[VPaulus]

Yes, only step 9, 10 and 11 need a few minor adjustments, replacing .Net 4.0 with 4.5-

9. If a repair does not help, then try to download and run the .NET Framework Repair Tool to see if it can find and fix any issues with the .NET Framework on your computer. You can download the tool from the below link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=30135

10. If the repair tool does not help, then go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel and attempt to uninstall .NET Framework 4.5. Then reinstall .NET Framework 4.5 from the link below:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... x?id=30653

11. If uninstall still fails from Add/Remove Programs, download the .NET Framework cleanup tool and choose to remove .NET Framework 4.5. Then reinstall again .NET Framework 4.5 (using the file downloaded in the previous step). The cleanup tool can be found at the below link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__k ... 0_tool.zip


Can you attach a DxDiag report file?

[Dagfinn]

DXDIAG

[VPaulus]

Please try the following:

Open the Nvidia Control Panel and locate the Manage 3D Settings. Change, in both Global and Program, the Preferred Graphics Processor to High Performance NVIDIA Processor.