[RTW] Issue with ALEX expansion

[debux]

First of all, thank you for opening this thread. You have just won an internets because of your kind gesture and willing monetary donation by clicking on the link.

I got RTW Gold (RTW+BI) not more than two years ago after previously getting it on steam. However, I wanted to get the Alexander expansion to be able to use it's improvements on the RTW engine. I got the standalone expansion through amazon, yet contrary to my previously owned RTW copy, this was distributed by "Avanquest" (Link to their amazon product is here and their homepage with the product is here).

Once I had my copy (and my PC at hand), I proceeded to re-install RTW, to install it somewhere else for comfort issues. Once I had the three games (RTW and expansions), I tried to install the patches, but because of a strange path thing of the patches, they could only be installed where they had been originally, so I was unable to patch the games. So I was forced to uninstall the game once again. However, when trying to uninstall ALEX, I'd just press on the Uninstall button on the Programs window and I'd get no response. So I asummed this would be no problem, which there wasn't until I could figure out how to "get rid" of the ALEX files.

Seeing that the uninstaller did no avail, I just decided to delete it manually. This caused a conflict when trying to reinstall the expansion, as the game had registered that the expansion had not been uninstalled, so it assumed that the game was still there, which it wasn't. When I tried contacting Avanquest support, I got the lamest answer of my life: "the GSP Alexander expansion game, will only work if you have the original GSP Rome Total War disc installed onto your computer." (GSP was something to do with Avanquest, but I can't tell what it is exactly.)

Please help me! I even got another copy (I got the whole anthology of RTW) of the game to see if it was because of the publisher. However, I didn't notice that the game I purchased was of the exact same distributor (Avanquest, or GSP). I hoped that it would notice it was a different disk, but the PC still think ALEX is still installed!

Right now I'll try to reinstall the whole game once again (with the new copies I got), but does anyone have a clue on how to "make the PC notice" the game sin't there anymore?

Thank you in advance! I hope this isn't very tedious to read.

[Brusilov]

I even managed to read all of your post......

When you think you've uninstalled the game run a registry cleaner to remove all traces. I think 'cc cleaner' is used by many people.

Also, make sure all traces of the game are removed from your PC. With Windows Vista and 7 games sometimes have traces left in the 'virtual store' or 'app data' area. On Windows 7 simply run %appdata% and that will take you to the start of the path to follow.

The folder will be something like "c:\Users\'user account'\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly".

This folder will be hidden so go into your folder options and change it to 'show hidden files and folders'.

Once you've done that start the install process. I'd suggest launching the game after each step and even taking a copy of the folder after each step to a different location. That way if the install fails you can go back to the previous version ny simply copying it.

Also, once you have a fully patched and working version of RTW RTW BI and RTW Alex take a copy of it and put it somewhere. Always keep one such copy 'clean' - you will never have to uninstall/reinstall ever again - so long as your hard drive doe snot fail.

[debux]

Thank you very much for reading my tedious message. I just didn't want to leave anything out (although there might have been too much in)

Also, make sure all traces of the game are removed from your PC. With Windows Vista and 7 games sometimes have traces left in the 'virtual store' or 'app data' area. On Windows 7 simply run %appdata% and that will take you to the start of the path to follow.

The folder will be something like "c:\Users\'user account'\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly".

I tried that, but it only showed me files from ETW, NTW and SIITW, so I guess it was the right folder and that I do have all folders visible (I checked too). Funny thing is that I do have RTW and BI installed. Great tip about the back up though, too bad I don't have it for the Alex expansion.

I'll try following the tips in your link irishron. Thanks a lot for it.

I also forgot to add I'm running on Win 7 64 bit on my first post.

[irishron]

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...Rome-Total-War may help.

[irishron]

I'm running the same OS. Good luck with it.

[debux]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

It worked, I actually had to use "f+ctrl" to look up alexander on the reg files and go an a rampage deleting everything at sight. It worked! Thank you so much, for the suggestions and for giving me the solution.

You can close this thread if you wish to.

PS: Thank you!