Confused?...Me?....Totally

[Sextus Sertorius]

This may not be the correct forum for this - if so my sincere apologies but........

Some years ago I enjoyed playing Medieva l2 Total War, then moved away to other things. I have recently returned via the purchase of Medieval Total War and Kingdoms Gold, which I successfully installed from the SEGA discs supplied (not Steam!)

I decided to explore a couple of mods - namely "Third World" and "Stainless Steel 6.4." Accordingly I downloaded them and installed them to two separate installs (copies of my original install) both of which I had tested to ensure that vanilla M2TW ran OK. It did.

All went well - it seemed.

However, when I tried to access either mod (and they're in separate game directories, remember) I was asked to insert a disc. I have only the two which came with my purchase. I have tried both, but to no avail. I am simply shut out. I have tried launching from the desktop shortcut installed with the mod and from the ".exe" files in the game directory, but always I am stymied by this request to insert a disc.

Thinking it may be the original game directory I copied which was at fault, I made a further copy and downloaded and installed Darthmod - NO PROBLEMS at all!

I'm sure I can't be the only person who has purchased, installed and tried these mods with M2TW & Kingdoms Gold installed from disc, so could someone please tell me what I do next?

With thanks

[irishron]

Have you disabled the UAC yet?

[Sextus Sertorius]

Just done so, but no effect. Should I restart?

[irishron]

Taken ownership of C: drive yet?

Patched to 1.5 yet?

[Sextus Sertorius]

I've also found that none of the "Kingdoms" expansions ( Crusades, Americas, Britannia and Teutonic ) work for me. I get the same "wrong disc inserted" error message. I patched Kingdoms to 1.5 using the UK patch - could/should I have used the EU patch? Is there any way of telling which region your installed discs are designed for?

[Sextus Sertorius]

Taken ownership of C: drive yet?

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick, but what do you mean by "taking ownership" please?

[irishron]

http://www.preyerplanning.com/take-o...-windows-7.pdf

Although it shows what amounts to an external drive, it works wonderfully for C: drive. Been doing it since Vista's release.

[Sextus Sertorius]

I'm running Windows 7 and. as far as I can tell, I have ownership / access to all my hard drives. I always run programs as "administrator" anyway. It doesn't seem ever to have been an issue.

[irishron]

Ownership opens up a few more opportunities than just Administrator. The reason I do it. Get back what I consider mine before Vista was released. My Windows days go back to 3.1. I still have my DOS 6 manual down here for reference when I need the Command Prompt.

[lolIsuck]

Can I ask you why you made copies of your original install? Both mods are in a modfolder and do not alter your original files or the files of the other mod so making copies of the original install isn't necessary. They're just installed into the /mods folder of your game.

[Sextus Sertorius]

Can I ask you why you made copies of your original install? Both mods are in a modfolder and do not alter your original files or the files of the other mod so making copies of the original install isn't necessary. They're just installed into the /mods folder of your game.

Old habit, I guess. Do you think it's relevant tyo my problem? I cannot open/run any of the Kingdoms add-ons, or mods in any of the installs - only M2TW itself (which is version 1.3)

thanx

[irishron]

Kingdoms in this case is either a bad install or Windows not liking you. And lollsuck is right about Third Age and Stainless Steel already mod foldered. Darth will ruin your vanilla install as it never was mod foldered.

The first one in this case I doubt. The second one can be beat by how much time and effort you're willing to put into it.

[Sextus Sertorius]

The first one in this case I doubt. The second one can be beat by how much time and effort you're willing to put into it.

Thank you. So, in practical terms, what do I have to do, please? I have time and effort to spare (retirement has its bonuses.)

Cheers,

[irishron]

That's two of us retired. I did it almost five years ago.

Now back on topic. My way since Vista's release screwed up my install then,
1. Uninstall the game through Control Panel, yeah I know but a clean slate works best.
2. Delete all the Medieval2 folders you can find including your copies, and assuming you installed in default folder with UAC enabled, a clue to where the hidden one lurks.
3. Run a registry cleaner like Ccleaner. This gets the garbage CA's uninstaller does not remove.
4. Restart your computer.
5. Be sure the UAC is disabled.
6. Be sure you have taken ownership of C: drive.
7. Install on C:\Games. If you have a second drive, better yet.
8. Test vanilla and Kingdoms. Are we there yet?

If the answer to 8 is, "Yes", to be continued. If the answer is, "No" what error messages are you getting preferably screenshots?

[Sextus Sertorius]

That's two of us retired. I did it almost five years ago.

Now back on topic. My way since Vista's release screwed up my install then,
1. Uninstall the game through Control Panel, yeah I know but a clean slate works best.
2. Delete all the Medieval2 folders you can find including your copies, and assuming you installed in default folder with UAC enabled, a clue to where the hidden one lurks.
3. Run a registry cleaner like Ccleaner. This gets the garbage CA's uninstaller does not remove.
4. Restart your computer.
5. Be sure the UAC is disabled.
6. Be sure you have taken ownership of C: drive.
7. Install on C:\Games. If you have a second drive, better yet.
8. Test vanilla and Kingdoms. Are we there yet?

If the answer to 8 is, "Yes", to be continued. If the answer is, "No" what error messages are you getting preferably screenshots?

All done. Phew....what a rigmarole taking ownership was! The answer to Question 8 is "Yes."
Vanilla M2TW working fine, as are all 4 expansions / add-ons - at least the campaigns ( I never bother with separate battles ). One thing I noticed is that the launcher takes a huge time to load, but, when it eventually is there, allows me to access vanilla M2TW and Kingdoms. (although, when I quit a game, the music continues for quite a while.)
I suppose patching is next? with M2TW Gold, the main game is already at 1.3. I have the 1.5 patch for Kingdoms, but I'm not sure which to use (EU, or UK - I used the UK patch before and, in an effort to sort things out tried to run the EU patch, but it told me that Kingdoms was already patched to version 1.5)

Thanx

[irishron]

In the Medieval2 icon, Properties, Target, change the launcher.exe to medieval2.exe, use the icons for it and the campaigns. It saves a lot of unnecessary grief.

Yes, the patch is next.

Third Age and Stainless Steel installers will find and install the mods in the mods folder.

Leave DarthMod alone if you wish to play vanlla as CA released it.

[Sextus Sertorius]

Oh, dear. I'm back to square one with this. I installed the UK 1.5 patch for the Gold edition. It took a while, but seemed to be going OK. Before trying to install either "Stainless Steel" or "Third Age" I thought I'd see if Kingdoms was still working. It isn't. I'm back to where I started with a demand to insert a disc. The error message reads:

"Wrong disc inserted.
Please insert the original "MED2GOLD" CD/DVD.
Please have a look at http://www.securom.com/message.asp?m=wrongdisc for further, more detailed information."

I visited the Securom site before and ran their diagnostic tool, but all it did was take me back to the same original error message. Naturally I've again tried inserting the disc(s) but to no avail.

It looks highly likely that the 1.5 patch is the root of the problem. I'll try contacting Securom. Meanwhile, any further help would be most welcome.

[Sextus Sertorius]

I've contacted SecuRom via their support website, so I can only wait and see. I'll also re-download patch 1.5 from a different mirror and see if that helps.

[LestaT]

Do you have torrent or disk imaging software installed ? Securom don't like those things.

[Sextus Sertorius]

Do you have torrent or disk imaging software installed ? Securom don't like those things.

No.