MGN

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 4:22 am

Did anyone else have problems when they installed the Matrix game Network? I can tell you I did.
I ended up have to format my entire hard drive. Luckily I have the entire World at War on Cd. I did lose a lot of info however and have to start all over.

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 5:22 am

Yes, the MGN internet link program forced me to reformat my entire hard drive. Am debating whether its worth trying that again...also lost a few programs. For reference, I have a Pentium 233 with a Windows 98 system.

Kerg · Post by **Kerg** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 5:32 am

It is moments like this that make me glad I run so slow.

kerg

David Heath · Post by **David Heath** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 5:42 am

Guys

There should be nothing in the game that would cause you to need to reformat your hard drive. Can I get a little more details.

David

David Heath · Post by **David Heath** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 5:43 am

If you guys can please tell me what version of SPWaW. You should feel safe running this client.

David

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 6:13 am

Upgraded from SPWAW-2.3 version to SPWAW-4.0 version on Sat am. First installed the SPWAW-4.0 version with no problem and restarted the computer. Then clicked the icon for the MGN program that automatically appeared on the desktop. This installed the program and then on the prompt restarted the computer. Just after the desktop appeared on the restart, an error box showed up with the following title: "EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module EXPLORER.EXE at 015f:00401f31" followed by a lot of data. The desktop then froze and the computer refused to follow instructions.

I had to put in the Windows 98 start up 3.5 inch floppy disk plus the Win98 CDrom in. I was unable to access the computer even using safe mode. As a last resort before a full reinstall, I simply reinstalled the Win98 program. This was successful. But that was a few hours in the making.

I just left a solitaire game of "Across the Wire" to respond to yr message. Would like to take the opportunity to say that I have followed this site and TGN for 2 years and for a wargamer of 30 years experience, SPWAW-4.0 is the best gaming time I have ever spent. Keep up the good work.

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 6:28 am

Sorry, should also add a couple of other things. After reinstalling the Win98 program, I tried a restart and the system crashed again. I ran the Scandisk on the hard drive and there were no errors. I manually went into the DOS system and tried to start up the machine. Each time I got close a blue screen would appear with the following error message "VFAT Device Initialization Failed - A device or resource required by VFAT is not present or is unavailable. VFAT cannot continue loading. System halted."

So I reinstalled Win98 a second time. Once I was into the desktop, before trying another restart, I went into the registry and removed anything with "MGN" in it. I used the "run" program to do this. Having removed four(?) items from the registry, I restarted the computer and it booted up normally.

Hope this helps. Back to SPWAW-4.0

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 7:27 am

We will look into this...We had over 50 different installs work flawlessly in testing...could you email me deatils on your system configuration.

At what point did you reformat?

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 7:48 am

System is:

Pentium - 233 mhz
64 MB RAM
Win 98
56 K Modem but running on High speed cable
4X CD rom

1. Had SPWAW-2.3 on hard drive
2. Downloaded SPWAW-4.0.
3. Clicked on prompt to restart computer at the end of downloading SPWAW-4.0
4. Machine rebooted normally. Clicked on "MGN Install" icon found on the desktop.
5. Clicked on prompt to restart computer at the end of installing MGN.
6. While machine was rebooting, the error message above(EXPLORER caused an...)appeared. Machine was frozen.
7. Several reboots resulted in same error message.
8. Used Win98 start up disk and Win98 CD-rom to attempt access using DOS.
9. Safe mode start up failed - blue warning screen noted above appeared (VFAT Device...).
10. Ran scandisk on system - no errors or viruses.
11. Attempted individual command line start up - same blue warning screen.
12. Used DOS to reinstall Win98 program only...wanted to save what was on the rest of the hard drive.
13. After reinstalling Win98 program, had access to desktop and Win98 again.
14. Restarted machine and again received above noted error message (EXPLORER caused...).
15. Again used Win98 start up disk and Win 98 CDrom to reinstall Win98 program only.
16. Again had access to desktop and Win98. Went to "Start" menu, went to "run", went into registry, typed in "MGN", and deleted anything with "MGN" in the registry.
17. Started up machine - ran normally. The progams I lost were jettisoned the second time I regained access because I moved several programs to a smaller hard drive (D

. This was because the next step would be to reformat the whole hard drive (C

. Luckily, did not have to go this far.

Have full details of the error message if you need it.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 7:51 am

Thanks! Yes please send me the details.

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 8:06 am

First error message...

"EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module EXPLORER.EXE at 015f:00401f31.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=00401f31 EFLES=000010246 EBX=00000001 SS=0167 ESP=005fff3c EBP=005fff44 ECX=c142caa0 DS=0167 ESI=00000000 FS=1b07 EDX=005fff4c ES=0167 EDI=00400000 ES=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 50 ff 11 8b 45 08 50 8b 08 ff 51 08 8b 45
Stack dump:
00401ee0 005fff4c 005fff84 00405eac 00000000
00400000 00000000 00000001 00404436 0059fc20
00406c77 00000000 00000000 005ffde0 00000000
005fffbc"

The second error message while attempting to restart in DOS...

"VFAT Device Initialization Failure
**********************************
A device or resource required by VFAT is not present or is unavailable. VFAT cannot continue loading.

System halted."

Again, hope that helps. Will be back tomorrow night to scan forums. Also want to take another crack at Panzers Forward.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 8:20 am

Laurenson and I are the exact same except I am running Windows 95C.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Mon Sep 11, 2000 5:52 pm

Are either of you using any BIOS extensions to access larger drives from an older motherboard?

What computer brand and motherboard type? Is your CPU running overclocked?

Dynamic partitioning softwar (Partition Magic or Partition Commander) or removable HD's? SCSI Drives?

Have dual boot configuration with other OS?

Anything else potentially peculiar to your machines that might affect the Disk subsystem?

The only thing I can come up with is that your machines have something "non-standard" in the way Windows is accessing the disk subsystem (the VFAT device error being the critical thing here)

Since you both have older systems (Jack I assume that your "exact same" applies to computer as well? IF not please send me your computer config as well - private email is OK...) I'm lead to believe that something related ot upgrades to your motherboards, disks, or Bios is potentially the culprit.

Have you ever experienced such things installing other comms software like ICQ or AOL Instant messenger??

Anything along these lines you can add about your system?

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited September 11, 2000).]

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 2:28 am

My mother board is a gigabyte 440BX. I was talking to a friend at work today and he asked me if I had any Demo games installed and I said yes. He tends to think that the demo games had something to do with it because a lot of them are not written properly plus he has had the same problem when installing other games.
I learned not to install demo games on my PC today, I hope everyone else can learn from my mistakes.

Windo von Paene · Post by **Windo von Paene** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 3:21 am

Paul -
I do have an older motherboard and BIOS extensions loaded so I can access a larger HD. Is this a known problem? Should I be very afraid?

That's what I get for keeping a 5 YO PC with Win 95a...

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 3:36 am

No known problems - just thinking out loud about what might cause the disk subsystem to choke...

There is nothing we know that would cause a users computer to hang by installing the MGN client.

Something obviously happened to these two guys, and it might or might not have anything to do with MGN...As the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know!

I am about to install the client on my old P166 machine running EZ Bios to access a large hard drive ... I am not afraid!!

------

Just successfully accomplished the mission! Worked fine. No crash!

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited September 11, 2000).]

Lawrenson · Post by **Lawrenson** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 4:54 am

Of all the options mentioned in your message of Sept 11, the only one that applies is that I do have the CPU overclocked. As for the motherboard (pentium 233 MHz) I will have to get the details from the previous owner (a brother in law). Have had this motherboard for over a year...no problems but can't say what type of motherboard other than the speed.

As for Jack's message re: demos, I don't usually download demos but recently made an exception for Combat Mission.

Will relay type of motherboard and any other BIOS info when I get it.

Do not have ICQ or AOL.

kevinw · Post by **kevinw** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 5:49 am

I noticed that the MGN install rplaces some important files in c:\windows\system. These are SOME from the install log:
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\oleaut32.dll
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\olepro32.dll
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\asycfilt.dll
Version: Following file not copied.
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\stdole2.tlb
Version: Following file not copied.
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\msvbvm60.dll
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\comcat.dll
Version: Following file not copied.
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSCOMCTL.OCX
File Overwrite: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\COMDLG32.OCX

I think it's very annoying when install programs willy-nilly overwrite your system files. Most of the time these are newer versions of Visual Basic runtimes and C librarys that are backward compatible. But this install relaced my Windows runtime scripting 'scrrun.dll'.
Could this be the cause of these people's problems? If so it would be very hard to diagnose.

Grok · Post by **Grok** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 7:00 am

I don't know if this related in any manner, but I could not get MGN to install(not showing a button) intially.

I had posted a question concerning this problem, but being impatient, I continued to "mess" with trying to get MGN installed.

Eventually, after trying 4 times to install MGN from the game menu selection, I uninstalled SWAW4.0 and then re-installed it, then installed MGN. After that the MGN button appeared on the START up menu.

I had downloaded the complete version of SPWAW4.0

I'm running a Pent Pro 200 64 meg with win95(updated and patched to most current available)

I use a dsl connection.

I have encountered no other problems with the game or with MGN. I have connected to MGN lobby several times with no problems.

Grok

Colonel Klink · Post by **Colonel Klink** » Tue Sep 12, 2000 3:12 pm

Originally posted by Lawrenson:
Will relay type of motherboard and any other BIOS info when I get it.

you can get your motherboard/bios information when you boot up. it appears during the second flash of screen information that stays around for a few seconds before the windows screen starts to flash.. (then ur desktop).
mine is the fifth line from the top.. right below is the word "motherboard" with an arrow pointing up.
Mine is set-up as four sequences seperated by a period. as example:

4A4LL0X0.86A.0031.P14

I have a 266mhz pII.

hope this helps.