Windows Vista and Show Banners feature

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · February 24, 2008, 07:33 PM

Hi everybody, I'm a Windows Vista user and I have a bunch of RTW and BI mods installed in my computer which run smoothly, no complaints in that department. I have an issue, however, that I've been unable to solve so far: I'm absolutely incapable of modifying the show banners feature of any of the mods I have installed, including the vanilla RTW and BI. I have already changed their settings from TRUE to FALSE but it hasn't worked at all. I've tried to make those changes for all the mods and the vanilla games too but unsuccessfully. The banners keep showing. Which is even stranger is that, apparently, I only have problems trying to modify the preferences folder of any mods or vanilla versions, since I've been able to modify other folders. My assumption is that this 'inconvenience' could be a Windows Vista-issue. Has any Vista user encountered this kind of problem? and if so, how did you fix it? Any help will be very appreciated. Thank you in advance.

**Brusilov** · February 26, 2008, 08:27 AM

Make sure that you are using the right 'preferences.txt' file - there are several per install.

The easiest way is to change something 'in-game' through the options menu that can be easily spotted in the resulting file.

I usually change the 'sound provider' option.

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · February 27, 2008, 12:13 PM

The thing is that I have changed every single one of the preferences text file and checked all of the mods and vanilla versions to see the changes, but not even one of them has been changed. Thank you anyway for the reply Brusilov. Any more ideas?

**irishron** · February 27, 2008, 01:32 PM

The logo names that can be changed are in the descr_sm_factions.txt. Changing the logos are in data\loading_screen\symbols, banners are in data\banners.

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · February 27, 2008, 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by irishron

The logo names that can be changed are in the descr_sm_factions.txt. Changing the logos are in data\loading_screen\symbols, banners are in data\banners.

By 'changes' I meant the switching off of the banners not the modification of their designs. Anyway, I appreciate the tips.

**Roman_Man#3** · February 27, 2008, 09:22 PM

After you make the change in the preferences folder, save the preferences.txt as a read-only file.

**Brusilov** · February 29, 2008, 02:15 AM

Can you confirm that the changes in the 'preferences.txt' file are being undone when the game is launched?

Make the changes to preferences.txt.
Launch the game.
Start a custom battle.
Look at the units on the battlefield - can you confirm if they have banners or not.
Exit the game
Look at the changes and see if they have been undone.

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · February 29, 2008, 02:41 PM

Initially the show_banners line of every preferences text file read TRUE, so I changed them to FALSE. Then, I tried a custom battle, the banners were still there, I exited the game, rechecked the preferences text files and they were still ahowing FALSE. So, the answer would be no, the changes are not being undone but they are not working either.

**Brusilov** · March 07, 2008, 02:48 AM

Make sure that you use the search facility to find all the preferences.txt files.

In a RTW BI install there are three;

1) in the main game folder
2) in the preferences folder
3) in the bi\preferences folder

I am unsure which one is used by BI - I would presume the last one.

**James Cook** · March 07, 2008, 08:27 AM

I got the same issue with banners and stuff

But I dont have the machine atm

good luck

**cluelessnewbie** · March 09, 2008, 06:23 AM

It sounds like this problem could be fixed by running RTW with administrative permissions. Right click on the program and choose "Run as administrator." If that works then you can set it to always run as admisitrator under properties, but that will mean an extra click each time you start the game as a UAC dialog will come up. Another way around this is install the game into your user directory. Then administrative permissions and UAC won't be required. If you want to know why then read on...

Please don't blame Vista because it's actually doing you a favor here. Lots of older programs like RTW have no concept of multi-user security and write user data and preferences into the Program Files directory. For all sorts of reasons this isn't good and Vista works around this by redirecting these files to the user folder. Any updated copies in the user folder take precedence over older versions in Program Files. This is completely transparent to the game, it thinks that it really is reading and writing to Program Files. It's a pretty clever workaround.

But, If you manually change any files in the Program Files it won't have any effect on the game because it's using the newer copies in your user folder. If you give the game administrative permissions then none of this copy business is needed and it will read and write from Program Files like normal. Does this make sense?

**PSEUDO ROMANUS** · March 09, 2008, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by cluelessnewbie

It sounds like this problem could be fixed by running RTW with administrative permissions. Right click on the program and choose "Run as administrator." If that works then you can set it to always run as admisitrator under properties, but that will mean an extra click each time you start the game as a UAC dialog will come up. Another way around this is install the game into your user directory. Then administrative permissions and UAC won't be required. If you want to know why then read on...

Please don't blame Vista because it's actually doing you a favor here. Lots of older programs like RTW have no concept of multi-user security and write user data and preferences into the Program Files directory. For all sorts of reasons this isn't good and Vista works around this by redirecting these files to the user folder. Any updated copies in the user folder take precedence over older versions in Program Files. This is completely transparent to the game, it thinks that it really is reading and writing to Program Files. It's a pretty clever workaround.

But, If you manually change any files in the Program Files it won't have any effect on the game because it's using the newer copies in your user folder. If you give the game administrative permissions then none of this copy business is needed and it will read and write from Program Files like normal. Does this make sense?

Damn! You're the :wub:*** man! (or woman). I've been trying to solve this problem for so long but unsuccessfully. Thank you very much for your help! Now I'll be able to continue some projects that I had, Thank you very much again for your help! You'll be a great asset here for all of Vista users like myself