Medieval 2 Access Denied - Windows 10

**Iameggman** · July 31, 2015, 03:56 PM

Hey guys, I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro last night from Windows 7 Pro. It was a clean installation, the PC was reset to factory settings. I've installed Medieval 2 and Rome 1 on my new Windows 10 and after the installation I try to launch and get the ''Access Denied Please login with administrator privileges and try again'' message.

I then go to my users tab in the control panel and it says my account is administrator, I've also tried going into the security tab on the exes and enabling full control but that doesn't work either and of course, I've tried running them as admin but nothing seems to be working.

Some help would be appreciated, thanks.

**Frunk** · August 01, 2015, 01:19 AM

I am planning on updating my Windows 7 to Windows 10 so I'm very interested in this.

Have you tried right clicking on your .exe and selecting "Run as administrator"?

**Iameggman** · August 01, 2015, 02:32 AM

I have and I don't get the message when I do that but it still doesn't start up, I get a loading circle on the mouse cursor but It soon stops and nothing loads, bare in mind I'm using the original disks and not a steam installation. I've tried running games on Steam and they've worked but I don't own Rome 1 or Medieval 2 on Steam.

**Gigantus** · August 01, 2015, 11:36 PM

So far this works for med2:

Creating a World - Converting Install Disk to Steam

**Frunk** · August 06, 2015, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

So far this works for med2:

Creating a World - Converting Install Disk to Steam

Thanks Gig, but I abhor Steam. I'll wait for a different solution for the CD version.

I have done my upgrade and sure enough, after installing successfully and following all the troubleshooting tips, I've had no luck getting the game to "start", whether that be via medieval2.exe, or launcher.exe. I've tried disabling UAC and reinstalling, changing the security permissions of the Medieval 2 folder, changing the files from read only, and so on.

I've searched on Google, TWCenter, The Org and Reddit, but so far there's no solution or even a clear indication of what the issue is. There's very little chatter on the subject at all, compared to Rome 1 and its own Windows 10 issues.

I did find this link and this thread by HawkDreams regarding Rome 1's preferences.txt file and the game being unable to create it. Could a similar issue be affecting Medieval 2, Gig?

Another Rome 1 reference refers to a drive called SecDrv.sys, which is absent in Windows 10 and relates to copyright protection. Explained further by Century X in this thread.

It did occur to me that my Medieval 2 directory looks somehow different to what I remember from my Windows 7 Pro installation, but I just figured it was because I have installed Patch 1.05 or Kingdoms (or any mods), nor unpacked the game, yet. Is there anything missing, or look out of place, in the image below?

I'm just clutching at straws at the moment...

**Gigantus** · August 08, 2015, 10:53 PM

Your CFG file is smaller then usual (1 instead of 3KB). Delete it - it will regenerate - and try starting again.
You have only installed the main game (not kingdoms campaigns) so it's difficult to say if the additional files in my directory are 'kingdoms only' files.

**Frunk** · August 09, 2015, 01:49 AM

Originally Posted by Gigantus

Your CFG file is smaller then usual (1 instead of 3KB). Delete it - it will regenerate - and try starting again.
You have only installed the main game (not kingdoms campaigns) so it's difficult to say if the additional files in my directory are 'kingdoms only' files.

Thanks as always Gig.

After reading some other posts I decided to install Kingdoms and Patch 1.05 as well, and have had mixed results. All my Kingdoms campaigns load fine (though I haven't tested game play yet). I played 10 turns into an Americas campaign without any issues.

Unfortunately, I cannot load the Grand Campaign. The medieval2.exe still does nothing.

Launcher.exe loads fine, but upon click Play -> Medieval II: Total War, does nothing. It just plays its launcher music until the end, and then does nothing (Launcher.exe stays open in task manager). Launcher.exe DOES load the Kingdoms campaigns fine, but it doesn't close itself after they are opened. It just keeps playing its music until it finishes. I was able to open more than one instance of Launcher.exe at the one time.

Clicking on kingdoms.exe briefly displays the Medieval II loading screen, before I get a CTD. The CTD features a dialogue box with nothing in it, as shown below. Do you recognise this? Am I correct that kingdoms.exe is only meant to run mods and not the Grand Campaign, so this behaviour might not be unusual?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Here is what my directory looks like now:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I attempted to delete the CFG and retry all of the above, however, I got the same result, and no new CFG was generated (I suppose it only would if the game actually did load). Interestingly, I created a new CFG (this one) and it did manage to create the logs folder, but no log was created within.

The CFG file I deleted was only 43 bytes and included only the following.

Code:

[video]
widescreen=1
[game]
allusers=1

I haven't tried installing any other mods, but I suppose it's not the end of the world if I can only play mods and not the Grand Campaign - that's what mods are for anyway.

Still, it would be nice to fix it.

Will being unable to run the Grand Campaign cause me any other issues that you can think of, other than not being able to play it? As long as I can access its files to use for modding, I can't think what else I'd need it for anyway.