BI fails

[Anfindol]

I have just reinstalled, from disc, onto a new machine. Played a vanilla RTW, patched to 1.5, to unlock the options. Had a CTD or two, but essentially fine. Installed BI. Can play that, but now cannot play RTW - trying to load a game cycles back to options screen. Can start a campaign, just not load a save. Tried to patch up to 1.6, patch app reports "cannot install, no BI exe found".
Had a similar problem with Amazon: Total War (2.5), which I used to play on the deceased machine, it would start up, but not let me select any options - whatever I clicked it produced a pop-up saying "select an option". When Ctlr-Alt-Del-ed out it reported unexpected start date.

Any thoughts?

[Brusilov]

First of all welcome to TWC.

If the 'select an option' message is really 'select an item from the list' (usually with a mod) it's a clear sign that R:TW BI is not patched to 1.6 (the latest version).

When you launch a game look at the top right hand corner of the Options menu. With the R:TW exe is should be 1.5 (the latest version) and with R:TW BI it should be 1.6 (again the latest version). If you use R:TX Alex exe then it will be 1.9 as there have never been any patches for that exe.

When installing onto Windows Vista, 7 or 8 the following needs to be done;

1) Turn off (or to it's lowest setting) UAC (User Account Control)
2) Install to a folder other than program files (either one) - create a C:\games (or whatever) folder and install there.

Windows treats the program files folders as 'protected' and you shoud keep all games away from them - also keep games (other than shortcuts) away from the desktop.

[Anfindol]

Thanks for the advice about the Programs folder. That helped, when I made an uninstall/reinstall. Instead of patching R:TW to 1.5 I went directly to BI, and that seems to work. Also, the BI disc I have is already 1.6, which is why the patch failed ( "new" second-hand replacement disc for loaned-read-lost original ).
Thanks again for your help.