mocachild

Join Date 08/2010

can't seem to reinstall

i bought the game from walmart installed it from the disk updated it from impulse and the game would crash every time i tried to build the first city rendering the game unplayable. so i used impulse to uninstall it. i tried to reinstall from the disk but it keeps trying to uninstall the game instead. while attempting to do this an error message appears "could not access network location NO$KEY".

game doesn't seem to want me to play it.

any ideas would be welcome. i'm not a computer geek so i'm just plain stuck. thanks!

i'm really sorry if i posted this in the wrong place.

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It sounds like the disk is having trouble recognizing that Impulse uninstalled it. You'll probably want to email support@stardock.com so they can investigate, and include the screenshot of the error. They should be able to tell you how to fix it so you can install from the disk again, it's likely something left in the registry that makes the disk think it's still installed.

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thanks for the suggestion. i have submitted a ticket to the support team. meanwhile i decided to download it and install it directly from impulse and see how that works for now.

again thanks

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Thats the better way to do it anyways (Impulse). Rather than installing, then patching.

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Generally yes, but I think mocachild's initial thought was that if the patched game is crashing, he can try off-the-disk to see. Impulse only downloads the latest version, so if it is something in the patch that's causing the issue he would need an off-the-disk install.

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I understand that, but....to go to the Gold version? Yikes!

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mocachild--

I'm getting the same exact error. Same thing with the disc, too. It thinks it has to uninstall. Did customer support help you? I sent e-mail this afternoon but I doubt I'll hear from them before next week, what with Thanksgiving and all.

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Never mind. Figured it out. In the registry, under Installer, then Products, the Elemental entry was still there! I deleted it and, voila! Install option again. Of course, I had to do a search on "Elemental" to find the entry.

For others reading this thread, beware messing with your registry!

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Yrth, can you tell me how to get there, preferably step-by-step? I have used the search to remove a ton of registry settings related to Elemental, since I want to entirely remove it before reinstalling, but I have not yet solved the problem, and now that the search is returning Elemental entries directly related to Impulse I refuse to blindly meddle any further.

I would very much appreciate your assistance.

Edit: Well, after a lot of uncomfortable tinkering in my registry I managed to delete the installation IDs and such, and simply left the remaining odds and ends in the hopes that they would be absorbed or overwritten by the reinstall. I would not recommend this sort of shooting in the dark unless you know exactly what you are looking at and for. Anyway, thank you for the starting point, folks.

Edit 2: So after the reinstall went fine, I discovered that Elemental and Impulse were no longer linked, and as such I could not update Elemental or download it through Impulse. After running a scan that fixed over 800 apparent registry issues (this computer sees a ton of action on a daily basis in the form of... well, everything one can imagine) everything is in working order. Again, to anyone who bothers to read all of this, always be careful when tinkering with your registry, and run regular registry scans as well as your spyware and virus scans.

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Mattimeo78---

So sorry. I just read your post.

Like you, after I reinstalled, Impulse did not recognize the game. I had to figure out how to make Impulse point to the right directory (select "More" from the bottom right, then "Open application folder" and point it to the install directory. For some reason, the first time I installed the game, it loaded to my "Program Files (x86)" directory but, the second time, it loaded to my "Program File" directory. Most odd. I did, however, choose the basic versus the advance install the second time, so maybe that caused that.

I know you solved your problem, but for anyone else...

Before I messed with my registry, I made sure there was no reference to Elemental in my "Uninstall a program" area. I also made sure there was no reference to my Best Buy add-on content about Titan's Blacksmith by uninstalling it in Impulse. Then, I opened my file explorer and made sure there were no Elemental directories or files in any Stardock or Impulse folder on my hard drive. I had to manually delete an Elemental directory with its remaining files that were not removed by the uninstall. Only then did I reboot and only then did I search my registry.

For me, there was only one folder related to Elemental:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\[elemental key folder]

My Elemental key folder name was a 32 digit alphanumeric code. Heck, every folder under Products seems to be named like this.

I just deleted the whole folder, and closed the registry.

But, unless you don't mind possibly destroying your registry, I do NOT recommend messing with it. Not for the faint of heart.

Anyway, Stardock did respond to me. They sent me some utility called SDSupport.exe that I'm supposed to run and send back a zip file it creates. But I didn't have to do this.

Surprisingly, Elemental is much more stable after the second install. It was almost unplayable the first time. I can't remember in which order I installed the Best Buy add on content (before or after the patch), but however I did it the second time may have had an effect.

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