Rome Total War won't run anymore on Windows 7?

[Gaius Baltar]

I was reading about the upcoming release of Rome Remastered and decided to reinstall RTW. Now, no matter what I do I cannot get it to run.

I was reading that this might be due to Microsoft disabling one of the the drivers, but Im not sure.

I see lots of discussions about this but none of the proposed solutions have worked for me. Any ideas?

Also, hopefully the Rome Remastered install will solve the problem?

[Gigantus]

Any error messages?

Check this with regards to 'safe disk'

Ever thought of 'converting' your RTW disk to Steam? Which in turn can get you a 50% discount for RTW remastered...

[Leonardo]

I was reading about the upcoming release of Rome Remastered and decided to reinstall RTW. Now, no matter what I do I cannot get it to run.

I was reading that this might be due to Microsoft disabling one of the the drivers, but Im not sure.

I see lots of discussions about this but none of the proposed solutions have worked for me. Any ideas?

Also, hopefully the Rome Remastered install will solve the problem?

What version are you using, retail (RTW Anthology, RTW Gold Edition) or Steam?

[Gaius Baltar]

Im using the Steam version of Rome Total War Gold.

No error message, just starts then hangs up at about 145k memory size and never opens up. I have to shut it down in the Task Manager.

[Gigantus]

Odd. It runs like a charm on my win10 machine - the safe disk stuff does not apply to the Steam version.
Which method (how) do you use to start the game?
Have you checked if there is an entry in Steam's launch option? Right click the game in the steam library and select 'properties' - that will get you to the launch option.
Have you done a file\cache verification?

[Gaius Baltar]

Odd. It runs like a charm on my win10 machine - the safe disk stuff does not apply to the Steam version.
Which method (how) do you use to start the game?
Have you checked if there is an entry in Steam's launch option? Right click the game in the steam library and select 'properties' - that will get you to the launch option.
Have you done a file\cache verification?

I am running Windows 7 on my gaming machine. Its an older HP desktop.

I go through the Steam menu to attempt to start the game. I have also tried the shortcuts and the icon in the main game folder. All the same result.

Yes I have doen the file verification...it showed no problems.

I am going to try to reinstall tonight to the C: drive. I have been installing all my Steam games to an SSD.

EDIT: Tried the C: drive and same result.

Im leaning toward the following explanation I found on a Steam forum.

Are you guys on Windows 7 by any chance?

If so, your problem might be related to the Windows Games Explorer service having become dysfunctional in the past week. Many older games suddenly refuse to start on Windows 7 because they're integrated into the Games Explorer service and waiting for a response from a Microsoft server that appears to have gone down some time around the 8th of June.


I only know this because one of the older games I play, Guild Wars, is also affected by this issue and we've figured out some workarounds while we wait for the developers to patch out the Windows Games Explorer dependency.


Since older singleplayer games like this are unlikely to get updated, here are the workarounds we've been using to bypass the Windows Games Explorer service and force the game to launch:


* Start the game twice. If Steam doesn't allow you to open it again whilst it's already running, open task manager and close the first instance of the game, then start it again and it should start the 2nd time (the first time it tries to invoke rundll32.exe and as long as you leave that process alone it should bypass it the 2nd time).


* For a more permanent solution you can try to rename gameux.dll in C:// Windows / SysWOW64 (after taking ownership and adjusting permissions). This will break the Windows Games Explorer service for all 32-bit games and should allow you to bypass it permanently.

[Leonardo]

I am running Windows 7 on my gaming machine. Its an older HP desktop.

I go through the Steam menu to attempt to start the game. I have also tried the shortcuts and the icon in the main game folder. All the same result.

Yes I have doen the file verification...it showed no problems.

I am going to try to reinstall tonight to the C: drive. I have been installing all my Steam games to an SSD.

EDIT: Tried the C: drive and same result.

Im leaning toward the following explanation I found on a Steam forum.

How long have you used that SSD and how big is it?

If you use it for a long time then perhaps it is time to replace that SSD with HDD since SSD has limited diskspace and shouldn't be defragmented. Sure you can defrag a SSD, but doing that too often will decrease the life time of a SSD.


That post on Steam forum has good information.

[Gigantus]

Seeing that the game explorer is defunct then renaming the driver would appear to be the best approach.

You may also consider moving the game into a different library if you are using mods, to avoid virtual store issues. SSD will make no difference for this old game anyhow.

[Gaius Baltar]

I have tried everything and still cant get it to run.

Not sure what my next move is. I may try installing on another computer I have to see if it is something on my end. It cant be the hardware since I have run the game before thousands of times on this rig.

[Gigantus]

MSI Afterburner is known to interfere with M2TW - maybe some other third party application that messes with the game?

[Leonardo]

I have tried everything and still cant get it to run.

Not sure what my next move is. I may try installing on another computer I have to see if it is something on my end. It cant be the hardware since I have run the game before thousands of times on this rig.

If I were you I would try to scrap everything (mods, tools, manual deleting files, folders that has to do with RTW etc) just to see if that helps.

Maybe delete registry entries in Windows registry (I've use it for years) then reboot your system.

After that install RTW on a different partition, not C:\ at all, and I know you can do that as I've done that myself and my RTW installation works.

[Gaius Baltar]

If I were you I would try to scrap everything (mods, tools, manual deleting files, folders that has to do with RTW etc) just to see if that helps.

Maybe delete registry entries in Windows registry (I've use it for years) then reboot your system.

After that install RTW on a different partition, not C:\ at all, and I know you can do that as I've done that myself and my RTW installation works.

I hate messing with the registry but I guess that is the next logical step.

[Legio XV Apollinaris]

Hi guys!
Does anyone of you know, if the new Remastered version from Rome: Total War runs also with Win-7 64-bit ? Official recommended settings are Win 10
Before i purchase the Remastered version i did to know that! Thanks in advance!

[Gigantus]

Seeing that it requires Steam to run I would say win7 will do. The issue discussed here affects apparently only older games (10 years and older)

I had a look at the gameux.dll file - it's date stamped 13.03.2021 on my machine, so a change there must have been recent.

[Legio XV Apollinaris]

Seeing that it requires Steam to run I would say win7 will do. The issue discussed here affects apparently only older games (10 years and older)

I had a look at the gameux.dll file - it's date stamped 13.03.2021 on my machine, so a change there must have been recent.

Thank you Gigantus! Nice to see you're still around here! .. this thread seems for me the perfect place to ask, instead to create a new thread!

[Gigantus]

Update - found this from the devs, dated 30th April: (red highlight by me):

We did not change the requirements from Windows 7

Hi all, I've seen this going around quite a lot and I want to address it.

We did not at any point have Windows 7 as the minimum requirement for the game.

I've checked our press releases, our initial placeholder minimum specs, our FAQ and even gone through all of our emails and at no point have we communicated that Windows 7 is able to run the game.

I realise that this is going to seem like my word against everyone else's and many won't believe it, but I do think this is an important thing to address and I do want to emphasise that this isn't something that we had done.

If you did buy thinking it would run on Windows 7, refunds are available and I'm sorry for the mistake, but this is not something that we did state on our side. Some websites do sometimes speculate specs, so it's possible it may have been elsewhere, but not from us or on any of our official platforms.

Also, if you do have any issues or bug reports, please do contact help@sega.com if you're on Windows or support@feralinteractive.com for Mac/Linux. We encourage players to attach a support report .txt file to their email when contacting support. This is generated on the Support tab of the pre-game Options window and provides a full output of the system, as well as any crash information.

[Gigantus]

Intentional double post due to content:

I found this section in the Contents\Resources\specifications.xml file, I am assuming this is what stops 'lower' OS from working. While I think that is done because it really won't work you can always try if it works when set to your OS specifications:

    <!-- Blocked Software-->
    <spec>
        <conditions>
            <and>
                <OS_version_major><less>10</less></OS_version_major>
            </and>
        </conditions>
        <alert stock_id="BlockedSoftware">
            <replace>
                <from>#{min}</from>
                <to>10 RS5 1809 (10.0.17763)</to>
            </replace>
        </alert>
    </spec>

[welshy91]

Intentional double post due to content:

I found this section in the Contents\Resources\specifications.xml file, I am assuming this is what stops 'lower' OS from working. While I think that is done because it really won't work you can always try if it works when set to your OS specifications:

    <!-- Blocked Software-->
    <spec>
        <conditions>
            <and>
                <OS_version_major><less>10</less></OS_version_major>
            </and>
        </conditions>
        <alert stock_id="BlockedSoftware">
            <replace>
                <from>#{min}</from>
                <to>10 RS5 1809 (10.0.17763)</to>
            </replace>
        </alert>
    </spec>

So me and a mate messed around with the code. First we deleted it and it didn't work. Then we changed the parameters and it didn't work. Only guess is that the Feral Launcher is doing something to stop any OS below certain win 10 version to work.