Matrix Games Forums

"Starshatter was not installed properly. Invalid CDKEY."

This error message can come up on a few Win98 or WinME setups. Please register in our Member's Area and download the latest official StarShatter patch, which resolves this issue.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

I see your download patch, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $29.95 or whatever it is to get the patch! That's not fair! I just paid $50.00 to buy the game and someone else wants more money so I can get the patch. That's crazy. If you can't sell me a game that I can play, then I want my money back! You can e-mail me that patch. Thanks, MM

Just click on the attachment to the above post and you can download it.

mmagio,

ORIGINAL: mmaggio
I see your download patch, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $29.95 or whatever it is to get the patch! That's not fair! I just paid $50.00 to buy the game and someone else wants more money so I can get the patch. That's crazy. If you can't sell me a game that I can play, then I want my money back! You can e-mail me that patch. Thanks, MM

I'm not sure where you saw that $29.95, but the patch is not a product for sale. Support for our games is included in the purchase price. Just download the patch from the first post, as the previous poster wrote.

Regards,

- Erik

I'm just curious, does it really say "Starshattered" in the error message or is that a typo?

The $29.00 is the fee that WinZip wants for allowing me a successful download of the patch. I do not feel that I should pay that as well as pay for the game. No matter how many times I try it or how I try it, WinZip wants $29.00! I do not think this is fair! I ask you this; I ordered the hard disc as well. Will I be able to play that or will I still need to get your patch? I realise that sometimes you have to "sleep with the devil" in order to keep costs down, but it is morally corrupt of you to make a deal with WinZip and force me to pay them another $29.00. And this is not even an upgrade! This is just to correct a "bug" you missed! I hope I will be able to play the game from the hard disc. Please advise. If not, I ask you to reconsider your position on this spurious charge.

You don't have to buy WinZip in order to install the patch. You can also download the trial version of WinRar from http://www.rarlab.com/ or WinACE from http://www.winace.com/ . Windows XP also handles Zip files natively, I believe.

Yeah. Windows can open any .zip format family, and Winzip operates fine in a trial mode- it just gives a nag screen.

Both WinRAR and WinACE are the devil.

Free ZIP programms:

http://www.filzip.com/ (recommended)

http://www.coffeecup.com/zip-wizard/
http://qzip.cjb.net/

Nobody forces you to use WinZip.

ORIGINAL: mmaggio
The $29.00 is the fee that WinZip wants for allowing me a successful download of the patch. I do not feel that I should pay that as well as pay for the game. No matter how many times I try it or how I try it, WinZip wants $29.00! I do not think this is fair! I ask you this; I ordered the hard disc as well. Will I be able to play that or will I still need to get your patch? I realise that sometimes you have to "sleep with the devil" in order to keep costs down, but it is morally corrupt of you to make a deal with WinZip and force me to pay them another $29.00. And this is not even an upgrade! This is just to correct a "bug" you missed! I hope I will be able to play the game from the hard disc. Please advise. If not, I ask you to reconsider your position on this spurious charge.

Um... I'm afraid there's a lot of confusion here. See the posts above. We have made no deal with the devil here. We have no way of controlling the way in which you choose to open zip files on your computer. Please try one of the many other programs to open zip files if you have a problem with WinZip.

More to the point, this was an interim update. Our normal updates install themselves and come in .exe form. This update is also no longer necessary, so I will remove it. Please register in the Member's Area with your serial number and download the official 4.0.1 patch, which incorporates the fix that was in this interim update.

Our patches are free, always.

Regards,

- Erik

Ok. I tried what you suggested. I went to the members area, joined, got a new password, rejoined, logged in, and finally got the download. I was able to get the download without any problem. It now appears as yet another Icon on my desktop, where it serves no purpose! I still cannot play the game! I still get the same adviso about the cdkey! If I click on the patch icon, all I get is the readme file. This is not working. I ask you again, when the Hard disc arrives, will I be able to play that or not?
I admit that I am not the most proficient person with a PC, but your downloads are not "user friendly" or I would not still be asking you, "What more will it take before I can play this game?"

mmaggio,

please try and explain your problem a bit more in detail. Lots of people can help, but you have to be our eyes because we can't see your screen.

I assume you downloaded the original and have a file called:

"Starshatter-Setup"

It looks like a computer with a little box and cd in front.

Did you also download the patch?

"Starshatter-Patch-v401"

(this should also look exactly the same as the above file)

You double click on the "Starshatter-Setup" and it will ask you for the serial number you got in your email. If you don't have the email, you can look it up by filling in some info at http://www.findmyorder.com

it will look like this:

"serial number: ####-####-####-####"

Enter that number including the dashes (-) into the box that asks for it.

Once completed, repeat the exact same process with the patch file. It too will ask for the same serial number.

If you are not getting this, please explain where you get different results and what these differences are. (as much detail as you can muster)

Ok, here goes. I have three Starshatter related icons on my desktop. I had another one that had something to do with a military magazine, or that's what it looked like to me, so I deleted it. That would have made four! So now I have three. The first says "StarShatter-S". It include an icon that looks like a PC monitor and a disc ans possibly what might be a PC tower.
The second says, "StarShatter Game menu", it's icon appears as a white page with the corner turned down and the 'flying window' icon on the page.
The third icon says, "Patch 401" and appears as an open spiral notebook.
So, it is obvious that it does not look like the first one.
I know what the serial Num. is and I'm glad I had the prescence of mind to keep it. And I did have to use it to get the 401patch. But since I have done all that told me to do, I do not understand the direction to "repeat the process with the patch file" I have downloaded a few files and programs in my time, but I have never seen anything quite like this.
P.S. For the third time, may I ask if I will be able to play the hard disc without all this foolishness?

OK, so your patch file is compressed format.

Easy enough fix.

It sounds like you have WinZip installed (based on the description of the icon).

If you Right-Click on the patch401 icon, there should be something like open with winzip or expand here, etc ...

That will take the compressed version and uncompress it to look like the first one.

WinZip does not need to be registered to do this, it will just give you a little annoyance add before letting you uncompress the file. Once in WinZip, you should see Extract to ... as a button ...

Ok. I have all that. Now what? And I never bought WinZip. I see an icon for it, but I'll be damned if I know where it came from. If this is causing the problem, should I delete this WinZip icon and everything that goes with it? Besides, I still don't know how to get to play the game. And for the fourth time, "Will I have to do all this when the hard disc arrives?"

mmaggio,

ORIGINAL: mmaggio
Ok. I have all that. Now what? And I never bought WinZip. I see an icon for it, but I'll be damned if I know where it came from. If this is causing the problem, should I delete this WinZip icon and everything that goes with it? Besides, I still don't know how to get to play the game. And for the fourth time, "Will I have to do all this when the hard disc arrives?"

What will be arriving is a CD (compact disc) for your CD drive. It will auto-install from a menu, but patch files are still downloadable, as with all games. Have you downloaded any patches before for other games? We're not doing anything unusual here in zipping them up - double-clicking on the file and then double-clicking on the .exe installer within it will start the patch install process.

If you have Windows XP, you don't even need WinZip, it supports zipped files natively. If not, don't uninstall it, just use it to open the file and launch the installer.

If you got the game to install, playing it is just a matter of launching it from the desktop icon or from your Start -> Programs menu. If not, just double click on the game install file and it should start installing.

Regards,

- Erik

I see we are going around in circles. I am using Win98se. I figured you knew that since the "CD key" problem was endemic to Windows 98. I have downloaded many gaming files in the past. I click on the download, click "open", the file downloads and loads to the game. I thought we were in agreement that I had indeed downloaded the "patch 401" and you were going to tell me how to get the patch to talk to the game. You started to tell me how to do that and stopped. What file do you want me to dble click on? And where do I find this "exe. installer"? It seems to me that at this point the problem is getting the patch to the game. We are making progress because at least I have the download which I could not do before with WinZip. Something has to be wrong with this system because it should not be so hard or confusing. I never had this problem with say, any of the StarWraith series games, including RiftSpace. When there is a mod or update, all I have to do is click on it and it goes directly to the game. I will gladly get rid of this WinZip icon and everything that goes with it, if you think that will solve my problem. I don't know where it came from because I sure as he.. did not buy it!

WinZip is fine ... don't jump the gun.

More details ... what happened with WinZip? Did you extract the patch file?

Do you have a new file on the desktop that looks like the startshatter-s ?

WinZip is just a shareware tool to extract the patch file from the archive it is packed in.

mmaggio,

You or someone else who uses your computer must have installed WinZip at some point, it's a free download from the www.winzip.com site. I doubt it is the source of the problem.

Installing our games and patches is just as easy as any others. Many, many patches are distributed in .zip files or similar compressed archives. We do this because it's friendlier with many download managers and other programs that don't trust executable (.exe) downloads without them being "packaged" in a compressed file.

When I talk about an .exe installer, that's an executable file. It's a "program". It's something that when you double click on it, it runs. If when you double click on the patch or the downloaded game, you instead see WinZip, that simply means that WinZip is opening the compressed file which contains the installer program. Let it do that (by clicking "use evaluation copy" or "continue trial" or whatever similar option it gives you to try WinZip without buying it).

That should bring up a window that lists a single file, which should be the patch. Double click on that file name and it should launch the patch installer.

If that still isn't clear, do you know how to make a screenshot of your screen and upload it here? I could illustrate exactly what to do if I could see a picture of what you see on your desktop. Perhaps we're still not quite connecting on the description.

Regards,

- Erik

Ok. I left dble clicked on the WinZip icon as you suggested. I see the "continue" box and clicked in that. A blank page appeares with some colorful icons across the top, but there were no files listed on the page. And alas, I do not know how to do whatever it is you requested. I am just a gamer. I don't even have a printer. Well, that's not true, but it also has a mind of it's own and almost never works. Someone once said that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing over and over expecting different results. I give up! I am not going to pursue this anymore and remove all doubt. You have created a situation that I can not solve. It is too much for me. I hope that when the hard disc arrives I will be able to play that, "bugs" and all, but be playable, and settle for that. I have learned a hard lesson here and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever download another game. I'm out $50.00. I work hard for my money and I expect fair value for it. I accept the fact that it is possible to acquire this patch as there would be many more people screaming for blood. But you have managed to put it beyond my reach. I hope your proud of yourselves!