RTE's After Initial Install

[DirkGildun]

I figured out how to correctly register DBEngine.dll using regsvr32 --

regsvr32 "C:\Matrix Games\Maximum-Football\DBEngine.dll" (the quotes are needed because of the imbedded blank in the path!)

However, now that the right DBEngine.dll is in the registry, I'm still getting the same RTE's.

After I finish downloading an update for another game, I'll re-boot my laptop and see it that changes anything.

[DirkGildun]

Still no luck!

I even manually registered the 2 registerable .dll files in the \redist\GameCom folder -- IR50_32.dll and truevision3d.dll to see if that made a difference. Nope!

I checked with my son (at college). His desktop has the same number of folders and files within the Maximum-Football folder as my laptop does, but he's able to successfully start MF.

Here's another shot in the dark -- Over time, I have set many Services (within Administrative Tools) to be Disabled or Manually Started to improve performance of my laptop. What Services are critical to the running of the game that I might not have Automatically starting?

Thanks!

[David Winter]

There are none that I'm aware of but they're not something that most people change with their home computers. Maybe try setting your services back to their default settings?

This is frustrating for me that we can't figure this out but it is a little like a mechanic trying to fix a car over the phone.

[Antmeister71]

ORIGINAL: DirkGildun

...I do not have Access installed on my laptop (I have OpenOffice Base instead). Is Access needed, or are there any Access run-time modules that are needed?...

Since you have OpenOffice Base, I can help you with this. I had written a post on another thread, but it was buried, so I will post it here.

For those of you that were looking for a solution without having to purchase Microsoft Access, you can use the free office suite located here:
http://www.openoffice.org/

Then follow the steps below to edit the database.

1. Open up the program called Base.
2. Once the database wizard opens, select the third option that reads Connect to an existing database.
3. Click on the combo box and select Microsoft Access.
4. Click the Next button.
5. Click the Browse button and locate the database file (.mdb extension).
6. Click the Finish button.
7. Select where you want save your .odb file. This will always link to the .mdb file as long as you don't move it. After the .odb file is created, you won't have to go through these steps again.

I hope that will help you with opening the database. I am a huge advocate of open source software and I am glad to see that you are using it as well.

edit--by the way, I only meant once you got the game running, you can use this process to open the database to customize the game.

[Antmeister71]

ORIGINAL: DirkGildun

After waiting until the initial bugs were fixed, I finally purchased and downloaded MF last Friday (v1.095). I installed it today, and when I try to run it, I get abends:

1) When I click on Play Development System, I get "RTE 429 ActiveX component can't create object."

2) When I click on Utility Set, I get "ActiveX component can't create object."

3) When I click on Play Maximum Football, I get "RTE 91 Object variable or With block variable not set."

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop with a 2GHz P4 processor, 1 Gb of RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility video card with 64 Mb of memory and fairly up-to-date drivers (Catalyst 6.2). Based on a lot of posts I have read since the initial release, I felt that the game would run on my laptop with at least low resolution, even though there isn't 128 Mb of video memory. If it is my sound drivers, I cannot find any drivers more current than I already have.

Attached is my DXDiag info. Can the game be run on this laptop?

I don't know what version of Windows you are using, but I have seen this error before playing other games such as Total Pro Football. Because they used database as well, it was required that you had the Microsoft Jet Database Engine already installed on your machine.

You can download the engine from this site.

This is for Windows XP only:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en
For Windows 95/98/NT 4.0, try this:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en

And it is possible you may need the Microsoft Data Components as well which can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 5d0506396c

Hopefully this will help you out with your problem.

[DirkGildun]

This is very frustrating to me too, David! I installed MF on our family PC (laptop) used by my wife and 2 youngest daughters and it starts up fine. And it has less power than my laptop.

I duplicated all the services settings that the family laptop has on my laptop, and it still hasn't fixed the problem.

I'm pursuing Antmeister's suggestions at the moment. I have a more recent version of the JET Database Engine installed than his link is to. Now I'm trying to download the MDAC stuff, but I think I may have that installed already too.

Does anyone know, if I try to re-install Windows XP on my laptop without reformatting my C: drive, will it avoid replacing Windows' files that are more recent than what is on the installation CD?

[DirkGildun]

Antmeister,

Thanks for your help with this!

Unfortunately, I already have Jet 4.0 installled on my laptop, and when I try to install MDAC 2.8, I get the message "MDAC 2.8 RTM is incompatible with this version of Windows. All of its features are currently part of Windows.", which I assume means that I had installed this before at some point (maybe to run TPF or BBCF).

I'm beginning to think that I may have to re-install Widows XP on my laptop, but this is something I really want to avoid having to do.

[Antmeister71]

Ugh...I don't know if you would want to do all that. If other applications are functioning, I would do it, but if this is the only program, there has to be some application you are missing. Try using this tool1 to see if you have everything

MDAC Utility: Component Checker
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[Antmeister71]

And if it is still not allowing you to install the MDAC file due to compatability issues, then try going back one version by installng MDAC 2.7:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Still not compatible, then you can go back to 2.6.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Both of these version still apply to Windows XP.

[Antmeister71]

And here is the very last thing you can try out if all else fails. This is from the Microsoft Knowledgebase

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296205

I really hope that one of these solutions will help you out before you decide to reinstall Windows.

[Erik Rutins]

Thanks for your help on this Antmeister. I'm frankly stumped regarding why this error is happening at this point.

Though it seems unrelated, you might try switching from the Omega drivers to the latest official 6.3 Catalyst Mobility drivers from www.ati.com after running Driver Cleaner Pro. One odd thing I noticed is that your reported Monitor Max Res is 640x480, even though it's actually running at 1024 x 768. I wish we could get you a set of updated Sound drivers as the 2002 date on those still has me suspicious that they could be causing problems. Have you tried adjusting your sound acceleration setting in DxDiag or disabling your sound device completely to see if that helps the game at all? I see a lot of Roxio stuff installed, is that a package you could easily enough try uninstalling without losing major work, then reinstall if removing it doesn't help?

Regards,

- Erik

[DirkGildun]

Antmeister,

Running the MDAC Component Checker shows that I have MDAC 2.8 SP1 installed on my laptop (which I suspected).
That KnowledgeBase entry is interesting that it associates the Error Message with Access. What if you don't have Access installed?

Erik,

The official ATI Catalyst 6.3 drivers do not support the video card that I have (Radeon Mobility 9000). That's why I have to use the Omega Drivers version instead.
The Roxio stuff is Easy CD Creator, PhotoSuite, VideoWave, etc., software. I wouldn't think that would have any impact on Maximum-Football, and it would be a pain to have to uninstall and reinstall that.
Since MF starts fine on the family laptop (see above post) with even older sound drivers, I don't think my problem is associated with the sound drivers.

I've compared the folders, files, and appropriate registry entries on both laptops, and they're the same for MF.

The family laptop had Windows XP re-installed on a new hard drive from an installation CD that already had SP2, while my laptop had SP2 installed through an update. There are just enough differences that I see in how Windows stuff runs and is presented in either laptop that makes me think the problem is associated with my version of XP.

Which gets me back to my prior question. If I try to re-install XP from the newer installation CD, will it wipe out everything I've done with XP on my laptop over the last 3 years, or is it smart enough not to overwrite newer versions of Windows files that are already there?

Thanks a lot for your help with this, guys! I've been so anxious to play around with MF that I've been pulling my hair out trying to get this resolved.

[Antmeister71]

ORIGINAL: DirkGildun

Antmeister,

Running the MDAC Component Checker shows that I have MDAC 2.8 SP1 installed on my laptop (which I suspected).

Well that sucks. You have both the Microsoft Jet Engine and updated MDAC Components.

That KnowledgeBase entry is interesting that it associates the Error Message with Access. What if you don't have Access installed?

Just try it out, because some of the files in this game were created using Microsoft Access 97 from my understanding. But do you have this same problem opening up TPF or BBCF (if you have it). They also use a similar database and you should be seeing the same problem if this is the case. If not, I don't know what the heck is going on in your case.

Which gets me back to my prior question. If I try to re-install XP from the newer installation CD, will it wipe out everything I've done with XP on my laptop over the last 3 years, or is it smart enough not to overwrite newer versions of Windows files that are already there?

If you are going to do this, it would be best to do a fresh install. So before you were to do that, I would save all my work on an external drive, CD, or DVD if you have that capability.

If your email is important to you as well, and you are using outlook, use these methods to back it up:
http://www.sitedeveloper.ws/tutorials/outlook.htm

If you use Thunderbird or SeaMonkey instead of outlook, use this software to backup your emails:
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

Or and don't forget to save your bookmarks.

Good luck.

[DirkGildun]

Good news for everyone who has tried to help me with this. I finally got MF to work on my laptop by re-installing Windows XP (from a newer installation CD) over my existing version.

Last night, after an hour of installation, an hour or so of activation (including a conversation with a Microsoft Customer Rep involving a bad Product Key [8|]), and 3 hours downloading and installing 41 updates to XP, I had a better version of XP installed without losing all of my old settings and applications.

And, more importantly, MF starts up fine now! On to the games!

[David Winter]

Wow.. I'm really sorry there were so many problems you had to reinstall windows to make it work. I'm pretty sure there was obviously something very unusual about your set up though. I don't recall anyone else having to go to that much effort.

That said, I'm glad you find the game interesting enough to go through that hassle..

[Magnum357]

This makes me wonder about another question, has anyone ever tried playing MaxFB with Windows 98 SE? I have my copy of MaxFB installed on WinXP, but I actually prefer Win98 more and wondered if anyone has had success or problems installing on that OS.

[Erik Rutins]

The installer and the game do work fine with our Windows 98 SE test system here. Heck, getting it working on Win98 SE was one of the reasons the release was held up.

Regards,

- Erik

[adamandevil]

I recently bought MF and I'm having the *same exact problem*. Also, I've tried everything you've suggested, including the microsoft updates. Nothing has worked. Tried registering every DAO dll I could find. No amount of patching, rolling back, uninstalling, reinstalling, or rebooting has helped, and I am not at all interested in reinstalling Windows. I had Office 2k3 Pro installed, and uninstalled it thinking that it was an Access problem - no luck.

Also had this same problem with the PureSim Baseball demo.

Attached is my dxdiag info.

Thanks,
Adam

[Marauders]

I recently bought MF and I'm having the *same exact problem*. Also, I've tried everything you've suggested, including the microsoft updates. Nothing has worked. Tried registering every DAO dll I could find. No amount of patching, rolling back, uninstalling, reinstalling, or rebooting has helped, and I am not at all interested in reinstalling Windows. I had Office 2k3 Pro installed, and uninstalled it thinking that it was an Access problem - no luck.

It has been a while since I had to run through this, but I use Windows 98SE, and the game works fine. As Erik stated, there was quite a bit of testing with Windows 98SE prior to public release.

One thing I recall is that the NVidia Drivers had a few problems if updated to the most current version for older cards like the FX 5200 Ultra. I had to regress my driver. I had a similar problem with Everquest some time ago.

[adamandevil]

I'm thinking more and more that this is a missing or corrupt file problem, since this game apparently works on many more machines that it does not work on.

I checked the redist\GameCom folder and that looks like it only installs some video codecs; nothing to do with database access.

I have also confirmed that the dll files mentioned above are installed and registered by walking through the registry.

For anyone else who has this problem, I would suggest first downloading the MDAC component checker and making sure everything is in order, as I'm doing now. What would really be helpful is to find a machine that the game works on, and comparing the MDAC checker results to compare mismatches.

Adam