Mega Problems

[tmac]

I up until recently had a downloaded version of 7.1. then I was lucky enough to find a copy of MCLV. I printed and followed the "newbies" instructions. I deleted 7.1, re-installed 7.0, applied patch, installed MCLV and appropriate patches, and happily began the campaign. It worked fine.
My troubles have begun with buying the download of MCNA. I think I bought it within 15 minutes of the announcement, lol. I had some trouble installing it, and ultimately gmenfan posted what I thought was the fix (the correct path for install). I'm not talking about the space in matrixgames, I needed to know the path should end after SPWAW, not include mega/desertfox-41 like the download prompts. This finally put both mc's where I believe they belong, which had been my first big problem. I now have a new, and worse, one. BTW, I don't know if this is related, but I get an error message each time I install MCNA (I posted this before) that reads (3 times) Error: could not move file(s) (#3, line3) and line 6 and line 9.
What happens now is that my games in mega go crazy. In almost every turn the screen colors go to a weird mix of purple, blue and green, especially noticeable in smoked hexes and by the background of the control panel. The game becomes unstable, and I have to close it. This is aggravating in the extreme.
I have completely uninstalled and re-installed these games about a half of dozen times now, which is getting really old. A couple of times win xp couldn't find the files to initiate the uninstall, so I had to manually delete them, or re-install them overwriting the old ones (which put the uninstall files back on) and then uninstall/reinstall again. I have tried it with applying all the patches (both mclv and mcna, even though download was supposed to be pre-patched) I have tried it with just mclv patches (which are neccessary for the version i have on Cd). I've looked through old threads and instructions, but no joy there yet. I have watched the new and hoped to find an answer, but so far no luck. I am running windows xp on a computer I bought a few months ago.
Anybody have any ideas?
BTW, I have been sent by the Army to a conference until end of next week. The second thing I do when I get home (after kissing wife, etc) will be to come here and see what you all have come up with. I hope someone has the answer. My copy of mcwt should be here any day now, so I'd like to try all 3, but this isn't going well so far.
Thanks in advance,
Tim

[Supervisor]

Everyone is having those 3 copy file problems, I don't know the problem not having the new download myself. To fix the crazyiness within the game try these 2 suggestions:
1. Run the game directly from the mech.exe file located in the C:\MatrixGames\Steel Panthers World at War\ directory, this will bypass the autorun start-up stuff which is a memory hog.
2. Delete this file steel.prf located in the C:\MatrixGames\Steel Panthers World at War\save directory. This is a very corruptable file especailly after upgrades. The game will recreate this file when restarted and anything is adjusted in the preference screen.

[Dukenfield]

I did the suggested changes to get MCDF to load and it worked great (although by reading a lot of threads this looks like it won't last...).
Partway through the first scenario I needed to leave and responded "Y" when promped to autosave and leave the game.
Problem is, I have no saved games. I've tried twice to get a game to save and it doesn't appear to work.
I can't play scenarios from start to finish at one time. What do I do to fix this?

[Rompa]

I d/l the MCLV and it did not wanted to install corr, it ended up in the wrong place so I just installed it and then moved the folders it created to the right places inside C:\MatrixGames\Steel Panthers World at War directory

Dukenfield: The MCLV d/l didnt create the nedeed save folder in MegaCam dir, if u dont have any Mega earlier, u need to make one manually to be able to save games.

[tmac]

Help guys...I'm back, looked at this thread, and wanted to try again. I tried playing again, and had the same visual problems. I decided to start over one more time. I have XP Pro, so I went to start/control panel/add-remove programs. I removed/uninstalled desert fox, and tried to do same to both steel panthers v 7..0 and sp v7.1 update (the other two programs showing). In both cases the pc "could not load initialization file". I can't uninstall game and try to do a clean install. Someone please help and let me know where to go or how to uninstall the game. I have a MCLV disk, a MCNA download (without SPWAW), and a downloaded SPWAW and patches available to work from. Help!
Tim

[tmac]

BTW, I asked in an earlier thread about the steel.prf file. Throughout the recent troubles with the game I have deleted it multiple times. It is not the solution for this problem.
Thanks
Tim

[rbrunsman]

tmac, I'm no expert, but I think all the files are in your matrixgames folder, so if you delete the whole folder, you would get just about everything.

[tmac]

the only concern i have with the delete files approach is that my understanding is an install places dll's and possibly other files in various locations that aren't in game file folders. These then become orphan filess and aren't good for the long term health of the system. An uninstall removes all files and folders from where ever they were put initially.
Is there anyone who's pc knowledgeable that can weigh in with an opinion?
Thanks,
Tim

[Orzel Bialy]

if you look at the creation time and date of the main game folders/files you can then also run a windows search for any dll files and see if you have any that were added at the same date and time.

Just a thought...though I agree with Rb that deleting the main folders should take care of most of your issues.

[tmac]

Thanks, thats a good idea........I'll give that a try and post my results

Tim