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[SOLVED] Game not starting, at all

H

Horthal

Landlubber
THIS ISSUE IS SOLVED;
FINAL UPDATE; I can safely confirm with 100% certainty that the Windows Update KB3086255 was causing the issue. I just reinstalled the update and the problem showed up again, so this update is causing the issue. Issue solved! Of course it would be Windows again -_- Anyways, all the help was all much appreciated guys, thank you. I'll go see if I can report this issue to Microsoft, perhaps they're willing to patch/fix the issue.

IMPORTANT NOTE; The following fix has been only done and confirmed to work on the OFFICIAL STOCK game from the DISC! I can't guarantee this will work with a launcher gotten from somewhere else or a modded version, still, it's worth a shot.

So, for anyone who gets the following issue in the future;

The game PotC giving an error "Acces denied, Please login with administrator priviliges and try again" or it not starting at all when trying to run with administrator priviliges, do the following.

- Go to control panel ->System and Security -> Windows update -> History of installed updates located at the bar in the left
- See if you have update "KB3086255" The quickest way to find it is to sort the updates by name and look at the KB updates.
- Is it installed? Yes? Then proceed, if not, then there's most likely a different issue.
- Uninstall the update. Go to the same Windows Update screen then at the BOTTOM LEFT (It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look) Click "Installed updates"
- Search for the "KB3086255" update, it should be located under "Microsoft Windows" again, sort by name to make the job easier
- Select it and then at the top bar click "Delete" and then click yes when it asks for confirmation. Then wait a bit.
- Once it's deleted it prompts you to reboot, do this reboot.
- Boom, should be fixed. If it's not fixed then there's probably another issue.
Click to expand...

So I installed the game, however, it simply will not start. Basically, I click it and nothing happens, I right-click with administrator and still nothing happens.

What I've tried;
- Deleting and reinstalling
- Compatibility mode
- Safe mode
- Updating drives
- Rebooting
- Run as admin
- Installing it just in C:\POTC
- Using Microsoft Application Compability toolkit*
- Starting it via CMD*
- Starting the setup in compability mode, which did result in DirectX9 getting installed
- Deleting update KB3086255 THIS FIXED THE ISSUE
(Windows Media player installer got blocked since it was not compatible or something?) but the game still not launches*
(list will be update the more I try, new ones are marked with * at the end)

All of which don't work. I don't know what's wrong. I know it should work since I've played it on windows 7 before, but nothing happens.

Rig;
Nvidia GT140
Intel Quad Core Q6600
8GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit

If anyone knows why it won't start please let me know.
 
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@Horthal: There are several common causes listed here that might help:
New Horizons FAQ | PiratesAhoy!

Alternatively, find the section on "How to enable Error Logging" on that same page.
That will generate a few log files that might give us some more useful data. :doff
 
Your system should be able to run this game fine. I used a similar system until 2013.

How did you install it? Online? From the cd's?
 
In your POTC folder have you set the screen resolution in the "engine.ini? The settings are on the top.

screen_x and screen_y

Set those to your screen resolution, click "file" and save. Then try. Your monitor might not run at the default resolution.
 
Hylie Pistof said:
In your POTC folder have you set the screen resolution in the "engine.ini? The settings are on the top.

screen_x and screen_y

Set those to your screen resolution, click "file" and save. Then try. Your monitor might not run at the default resolution.
Click to expand...
Tried, didn't work.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
How about the stuff from the FAQ?
Usually one of those works and, if they don't, the error logs will give us more to go on.
Click to expand...
Even that didn't work. And when I try the stuff for the error logging. No logs are being made, nothing. Unless the logs are hidden somewhere else, there are no additional files created nor maps that indicate it's a log.
 
No compile.log, error.log, or system.log files are being created? That sounds like the .exe isn't working.
 
Oh a little update, the .EXE does seem to work. It just didn't look like yesterday because I forgot I had turned security off for testing purposes. When I normal click it I get an error "acces denied" with as description "please login with administrator priviliges and try again" fair enough, I right click it and "run as administrator" the computer prompts me if I want to run the program so it does register as being clicked, I click "yes" and nothing once again, still seems the EXE isn't broken. Also, when I look at "data last edited" it says 4-7-2003 19:25 not sure if that's really important, might be useful to know.

Pieter Boelen said:
Does this modpack contain a new version of the EXE?
PotC Build 12.1 Full file

If not, this one does:
PotC Build 13 Final file
Click to expand...
Haven't tried this yet, just returned from school and still have some work to do. I'll look into it tommorow or tonight, but just wanted to adress that this seems to be an "enhanced" version of the game, modded etc. Which to be honest, I want to play the vanilla game, but I'll try if all else fails and there is really nothing left.
 
Horthal said:
Haven't tried this yet, just returned from school and still have some work to do. I'll look into it tommorow or tonight, but just wanted to adress that this seems to be an "enhanced" version of the game, modded etc. Which to be honest, I want to play the vanilla game, but I'll try if all else fails and there is really nothing left.
Click to expand...
You can take only the engine.exe from there and leave out the other files.
Then there are no mods involved.
 
Ok, so, the other game, doesn't work. Can't even use the launcher to just use the vanilla game it forces me to use its custom modpacks. Can't even uninstall it so I just deleted the whole folder.
 
Well, I'm going to try to run the setup for PotC in compability mode, it has selected Windows XP SP2. Perhaps this'll work? Dunno, at this point I'm just trying out every crazy idea.

UPDATE: It might work, I just clicked yes on both prompts to install DirectX and Windows Media player, both which launched after, didn't do that before.

UPDATE 2: Nope, nevermind, still nothing. Though, if I cancel the "fix compability issues" I get an error saying "incompatible application" which is of course, BS, since it should be compatible.
 
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Ok, BIG update. So I may be onto figuring out the problem. You see, @Hylie Pistof linked me to a version of the stock game which did work! So. I replaced every file in the folder where I originally installed PotC, nothing, but as soon as I replaced the ENGINE the administrator icon dissappeared and I could start the game no problem! So, Windows is doing something to the original installed ENGINE which prevents it from launching, I only need to figure out what exactly that is but I think I may know what. You see, when I ran the setup in compability mode and tried to install Windows Media Player which you get prompted to when installing windows said it blocked it because of compability issues. So Windows is most likely blocking this game too somehow because it isn't made for Windows 7, so I only have to figure out if it is blocking it and if so, how to unblock it. Big thanks to Hylie otherwise I wouldn't have figured out this little detail.
 
Ok, semi-final update. I managed to get the game to work! From disc! There's this Windows Security update. KB3086255 which prevented me from launching the game because it would deny my acces to it due the game not being optimized for Win7. Now I deleted the update, rebooted and now it works! I'm going to see what happens if I install the update again tommorow so I'll post one last final update tommorow with the conclusion.
 
Horthal said:
Ok, semi-final update. I managed to get the game to work! From disc! There's this Windows Security update. KB3086255 which prevented me from launching the game because it would deny my acces to it due the game not being optimized for Win7. Now I deleted the update, rebooted and now it works! I'm going to see what happens if I install the update again tommorow so I'll post one last final update tommorow with the conclusion.
Click to expand...
Wow, that's an interesting find! Strange too; I've been running the game just fine on Windows 7 for many years.
But indeed I haven't used the regular installer in forever, so I may have bypassed that "Windows Security update KB3086255".

How old is that update? I'm surprised nobody ever ran into this one before. :shock
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Wow, that's an interesting find! Strange too; I've been running the game just fine on Windows 7 for many years.
But indeed I haven't used the regular installer in forever, so I may have bypassed that "Windows Security update KB3086255".

How old is that update? I'm surprised nobody ever ran into this one before. :shock
Click to expand...
According to my PC, that update is from September 2017... Though I thought I had the problem before... No matter, I'll post the (hopefully) final update once I get home and tried installing the update again.
 
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