SPWAW and WindowsXP

[SSgtUSMC]

Hey Guys,
Anybody having problems with WinXP? Game will only run a max of 5-10 mins before it completely shuts the computer down, not just to the desktop..but powers it off.

I have been recalled back to Active Duty and until I get to put steel on target, or the wife tells me that I have her blessings to go forth and sin, this is one of few pleasures open to me.

I have checked and disabled all power off and hibernations setting etc... Still no luck.

Help!!

Semper Fi

[Belisarius]

Sarge, sorry can't help you out there. I run SP:WAW under XP and it works perfectly. Never crashed on me, and I have used it daily since I installed XP last November.

Do you have v7.1? My only suggestion is, ofcourse, to uninstall and reinstall the game.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Hmmm another successful XP user here as well.

One final option if you get desperate though (and SP players are sure dedicated eh).

If you got the hard drive space and you can handle repartitioning it.

You can install Win 98 (or earlier if ya wants) on a secondary drive (like D in my case) and then re install Win XP as the default (assuming you wish to retain XP).

At boot up I select one or the other OS. Because my scanner refuses to play with XP I had to go this route. That, and I have 3 wargames that like 98 at the exclusion of XP.

But the fact you can't run it under XP, its not XP doing it. Can't be because it runs for us.
You might have a hardware installed conflict that is getting in the way as well.
Or you might just have to install SP fresh (your copy might also be damaged in some way, a new downloaded copy might be in order).

[bigtroutz]

try updating your VIDEO card driver. Your problem sounds like some i have encountered with bad drivers and ATI graphics cards

[MacCready]

There's something to be said for keeping an older comp around with an older OS on it.

[gbotto600]

i'm running SP:Waw v7.1 on Windows:XP Home Ed. and it runs perfectly

[SSgtUSMC]

Thanks for the replies....seems that its not XP as many of you are running fine with it.

I posted the plea for help last night while I was downloading all the upgrades to get from 5.3 to 7.1. To my amazement this afternoon I was able to get the game to run for over 3 hours....then..kapute....it just died again. Not sure why. On subsequent tries I still got no more than 10 mins...

Drivers, Hardware Conflict, Partition's etc.....Hmmmm....When I found out that the wife was smarter than me I figured there was no use in learning eanything else about these amazing lil boxes we play with..she knows it all...I just concentrated on tactics....Ill have to get her to take a look at it when I get a chance to put it in her hands.

I am instaling the game off of a shipped Desert Fox Cd that I have had for a while...and have reinstalled several times...have even gone as far as reformatting back to factory specs. Probably is a bad copy ........anyway I will start the download of the new version tonight a\nd hope that it corrects the problem.

Once again thanks for the help.

Semper Fi
--------------

[Lars Remmen]

Have you tried to run the program in Win98 compability mode? If not, then it is worth a try.

Regards,

Lars

[Bing]

Yes, try the compatibility mode. If it doesn't turn off your sound - which it did to me when I enabled compat with DirectCD sofware - you can't tell, it might help.

From what I read above, nobody has suggested going into the Services and disabling some of them, or at minimum making them Manual rather than Automatic. Could be some of these are starting themselves and wrecking WAW play.

Here's an URL with suggestions on each and every WinXP Service: http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/strangeservice.htm --- some of the suggestions are indeed strange, but the fellow has a point.

Be VERY careful on disabling some of the servies - its easy to lose functionality. Do the Ctrl + Alt + Delete to bring up task mgr, in XP it shows you what servies are running and how much RAM they are consuming. You may be surprised; some of them soak up 10 to 12 Megs.

You might also check for versio conflict - its somewhat different to go about this in XP than it was in Win98, but the principle is the same: After a coouple weeks of eliminating everything else - this was in Win98 - for a fellow who had the crashes same as yourself, we got to Version Conflict. It solved the problem.

No guarantees, but the idea is the same with both OS's: An application replaces a dll with one of an earlier date, then leaves it that way. When the app you are now running calls for the more recent version, OS can't handle the conflict and calls it a day. Whatever error reporting that comes from Redmond, which always was misleading, totally ignores this type of problem. It just crashes.

Error reporting is better in WinXP, you might be able to set up a log and find out exactly what it is causing the crashes. But I have ta tell ya: What is happening to you is exactly why I went to a two computer configuration, running WinXP on the new one and Win98SE and WAW on the old one, KVM handling the dynamic duo (Belkin - it works great).

I have, per Voltaire, the best of all possible worlds. Well, not really, because it can easily mean problems with two DIFFERENT operating systems, sometimes simultaneously.

Bing

[kevsharr]

I also am running XP and have experianced 0 problem's with sp-waw,as an aside i've been running it since last nov. and have yet to have a crash..period very stable much more than 95 or 98's that i've run.By the way I also found Black Viper and shutdown a lot of processes that were hogging space went to far though and shutdown my printer fortunatly in his instruction's for that particular process he said if printer start's acting funny to restart process and that took care of problem.TweakXP is another good XP site

[Waylander]

Once or twice I have been playing and the game just shuts down to the desktop. every time I have reloaded OK, except when I saved a game on the victory screen, then it would always crash to desktop. I have tried to figure this out ...re drivers etc, but all my drivers are current, I think it is just "not written for XP"

regards
Waylander

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

As all the previous posts will demonstrate Waylander SPWaW works fine with XP, works fine with mine as does several others.

The trouble is elsewhere.

[Fallschirmjager]

I have XP on a labtop so this may or may not help..

How much ram do you have?
XP runs terrible on 128 or lower.

Also select run from the start menu and run msconfig
Turn off every single background application (yes even virus detection I turn mine on when I need it)
If you serious about game then background programs eat up memory bye the mouthfull (no pun intended).

[chief]

Les the Sarge 9-1: Are you using Control and Command ?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

I haven't been using Command and Control recently, but I am led to believe that, that has been addressed in latest mods to 7.1

I am unaware currently though specifically.

[Greg McCarty]

I've been using xp with spwaw since last fall. I've experienced the crash issue, but it was associated (as with some others ) with the video drivers. This is particularly true with some of the rather "hot" beta" Nvidia drivers like 23.11. Use a microsoft approved driver, and chances are that all will be fine. As far as I can see, XP and SPwaw do not quarrel.

[Arralen]

Hi folks !

The "C&C" problem with NT/W2k/WinXP was fixed with v7.1, I'm absolutly shure about that

These "shut down after x minutes"could be a thermal problem.

SPWAW runs at 100% CPU all the time, what comes from it being DOS-code originally, and what couldn't be changed without re-writing the whole engine.

But running at 100% isn't something that modern systems (NT etc.) normally do, even with those graphics-intensive RTSD games

Try taking of the cover of your casing, maybe this helps ..

A.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Ya know I discovered the "hot" problem with my previous system too.

Had nothing to do with Steel Panthers though, but I lucked out on a spark of inspiration one day.

System kept conking out (and I know nothing of computers eh).
Took off case and aimed a pedestal fan at it (this is NOT generally recommended any more than my using a vacumm cleaner on it, yes I know static electricity...did I say I was moved to making dumb decisions some days heheh).

Better solution, one I was told eventually, is just plop a second fan in your case. My processor fan had died (I didn't know this at first). And I also had a powerful new hard drive in an old system (made more heat than original case design had contemplated).

So today my current system has two case fans (where it would normally have been sold with one case fan). Case sides are always cool to the touch eh. But I like it that way.