Installshield problems with WinME

[LiekOMG]

Not sure if anyone is else is having this problem, so i decided to come here to ask. I cannot install half of my games that use the older version of Installshield. At about 5% of the installation, i get an error message saying there was an error in some file called ZDATA or something similar. I've tried 4 different games, each using installshield, and can't get them installed. Games that use their own installer, like q3a and UT seem ok. Anyone else experience this problem, and maybe know a fix?

 

[LiekOMG]

Oh yeah, i wanted to add that Q3A is acting a bit strange too. Everytime i try to run a demo, it just cancels itself during loading. Its like a 50/50 chance of getting into a game because it might just cancel its loading. strange...


maybe i should just go back to 98?

 

[hungrypete]

i get some werid stuff in games depending on registry settings for my video card, mostly dealing with texture storage. Otherwise, WinME has been okay for me. I've heard a lot of people with big complaints though. I hope they release a service pack and not a stand alone upgrade like WinME SE or something horrible like that.

 

[LiekOMG]

This is really horrible, i'm unable to install half of the games i own, because the installation keeps giving me errors. I'm not sure if this is because of WinME (it shouldn't be), or something else in itself. I used to have a conflict a long time ago with installshield and NAV. So i went and closed everything that was running except for explore and systray, but still i get that error.

I wouldn't mind going back to 98 for now, but does this mean i can NEVER use winME?

 

[LiekOMG]

OK, i did some testing, and now things have become even more disturbing.

First i thought it must be some kind of driver that I installed causing this install problem. So I formatted C again, and reinstalled ME from scratch. But once it was done, the first thing i did, before installing ANY drivers, i tried to install one of those games. And guess what? same problem! Ok, so i guess it was winME causing it.

So i format again, and go back to 98. Guess what... same problem there!!! I cannot believe this is happening! Win98 is acting perfectly normal, except for this strange error. If i were to format again, and install 98, and then run installshield again,, i'm sure it would still crash. So then... whats causing this damned error? If its not a software problem, then it must be a hardware problem. But what can it be? I just upgraded to a TB 800 on an A7V 2 weeks ago. This is making less and less sense to me... i think i am going to cry.

 

[LiekOMG]

WELL..... here is an update, for those of you that care..


Finally got it working. Not exactly sure what did it, because i got desperate and started changing 100 options all at once without testing each one individually. Here are the things that I changed..

Changed "plug and play OS" to NO in BIOS options
Installed promise ATA100 controller
disabled DMA on CDROM drive
disabled read ahead optimization on CDROM drive

After changing all of these, I was finally able to install EQ without any problems. I wish i knew which one of these was causing the problem, but my guess is its one of the first two. I doubt its the second two, since i got the same error even when copying all the files to my HD and running setup from there.

Now that i know a set of possible solutions, i can probably reinstall WinME and get everything working normally.

There are still two problems that have been haunting me though...

First, my mouse is acting VERY VERY strangely. If I so much as move it slightly too fast, the mouse cursor just jumps all over the screen eradically. Turning sensitivity of the mouse in windows up just makes it worse. I know my mice is not at fault, because i've tested 2 of them (a USB/ps2 and my old serial), and they all have the same behavior. I think its due to the MS intellimouse software, but i could be wrong.. One thing is for sure, i never had this problem before.

Secondly, in winME, q3a was acting a bit strange. I explained part of it above. another problem with it was when i ran the first demo, all the textures would be corrupted, and it was like the screen wasn't refreshing itself. Strange, but that might be due to the voodoo5 beta drivers. Oh well, this post is too long already..