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Korath wrote:A space in the directory name shouldn't make any difference; I develop it in such a directory.

Is it just not doing anything at all when you try to start it, or is it giving you any error messages?

It's doing absolutely nothing Korath. And I ran both of the windows updates in the 2012 gamma package.

I guess the next question to ask is whether Manalink or (unaltered) Shandalar work in isolation.

Korath wrote:I guess the next question to ask is whether Manalink or (unaltered) Shandalar work in isolation.

They do both work in isolation. Well the original Manalink 3.0 in that guy's sig anyways.

Teraunce wrote:

Korath wrote:I guess the next question to ask is whether Manalink or (unaltered) Shandalar work in isolation.

They do both work in isolation. Well the original Manalink 3.0 in that guy's sig anyways.

Can you make a windows explorer screenshot or copy paste of your shandalar folder with its folder structure?

stassy wrote:

Teraunce wrote:

Korath wrote:I guess the next question to ask is whether Manalink or (unaltered) Shandalar work in isolation.

They do both work in isolation. Well the original Manalink 3.0 in that guy's sig anyways.

Can you make a windows explorer screenshot or copy paste of your shandalar folder with its folder structure?

I could Stacy, but it's bog wraith's download through and through which is working for other people. Still I shall when I get back later today.

Teraunce: I'm also running Windows 7 and I had some small issues while trying to get Bog Wraith's pack working (as detailed previously in this thread). Some things you can try, to see if it helps:

1) Running Shandalar.exe as Administrator;
2) Turning off "compatibility mode" for Shandalar.exe;
3) If the containing folder shows up in Explorer in a green color, select it and turn off disk encryption (if activated) for that folder.

Hope you manage.

(Note: when removing read-only status or disk encryption, make sure to select the "apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" option)

quatrocentos-e-vinte wrote:Teraunce: I'm also running Windows 7 and I had some small issues while trying to get Bog Wraith's pack working (as detailed previously in this thread). Some things you can try, to see if it helps:

1) Running Shandalar.exe as Administrator;
2) Turning off "compatibility mode" for Shandalar.exe;
3) If the containing folder shows up in Explorer in a green color, select it and turn off disk encryption (if activated) for that folder.

Hope you manage.

(Note: when removing read-only status or disk encryption, make sure to select the "apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" option)

Did all of those. Starting it without admin privs causes it to briefly stay in task manager with a 3.8 MB process. With admin priviledges it spawns a 2.3 MB process. the former causes the cursor to hourglass for 15-30 seconds and it stays loaded for up to 60 seconds.

Ah, forgot to ask but can you also paste/screenshot your event log in the windows admin panel, it can give lots of info on what happening during game loading (right click on my computer icon > select Manage > select Event log > check for system or application tab to view the event list)

Teraunce wrote:

quatrocentos-e-vinte wrote:Teraunce: I'm also running Windows 7 and I had some small issues while trying to get Bog Wraith's pack working (as detailed previously in this thread). Some things you can try, to see if it helps:

1) Running Shandalar.exe as Administrator;
2) Turning off "compatibility mode" for Shandalar.exe;
3) If the containing folder shows up in Explorer in a green color, select it and turn off disk encryption (if activated) for that folder.

Hope you manage.

(Note: when removing read-only status or disk encryption, make sure to select the "apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" option)

Did all of those. Starting it without admin privs causes it to briefly stay in task manager with a 3.8 MB process. With admin priviledges it spawns a 2.3 MB process. the former causes the cursor to hourglass for 15-30 seconds and it stays loaded for up to 60 seconds.

Well... off the top of my head, other things that could be interfering:

a) Anti-Virus software... have you tried running Shandalar.exe without an AV software running?

b) Address space layout randomization (ASLR) and/or Data execution prevention (DEP)... maybe turning those off (if on) helps? (I'm just saying this because of the asm "hacks" that might have been introduced in the meantime; but I could easily be wrong about this).

Getting this game to work on modern OS is an adventure in itself, sometimes :\

ASLR is a major, major problem for Manalink - it typically takes me a half dozen attempts to get the program running - but it shouldn't matter here at all.

Data execution prevention and paranoid antivirus software that panics when it sees self-modifying code will still kill us dead dead dead, though. If anything, the situation with antivirus will be worse; Shandalar.dll modifies the in-memory image of Shandalar.exe extensively at startup.

Korath wrote:ASLR is a major, major problem for Manalink - it typically takes me a half dozen attempts to get the program running - but it shouldn't matter here at all.

Yeah, I guess ASLR shouldn't be a problem, at least on normal Windows installs, as it seems to be disabled by default (for retrocompatibility reasons, I'd guess).

Korath wrote:Data execution prevention and paranoid antivirus software that panics when it sees self-modifying code will still kill us dead dead dead, though. If anything, the situation with antivirus will be worse; Shandalar.dll modifies the in-memory image of Shandalar.exe extensively at startup.

If that's the case... then, yeah, I'm pretty sure most anti-virus will go crazy (self-modifying code does that). Strangely, Kaspersky doesn't seem to mind (at least on my computer).

---------//-----------

Teraunce: I'd really recommend first trying to run Shandalar.exe with AV turned off. It seems like the most likely culprit to me, at this point. Regarding DEP... try running this command on the command line:

wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy

If it says "0", "1" or "2", then DEP shouldn't be a problem (it is only a problem if it says "3"). In my case, I have "2" (which means that DEP is activated only for Windows components and services), and it doesn't seem to interfere with Shandalar.exe

Again... best of luck

quatrocentos-e-vinte wrote:

Korath wrote:ASLR is a major, major problem for Manalink - it typically takes me a half dozen attempts to get the program running - but it shouldn't matter here at all.

Yeah, I guess ASLR shouldn't be a problem, at least on normal Windows installs, as it seems to be disabled by default (for retrocompatibility reasons, I'd guess).

Korath wrote:Data execution prevention and paranoid antivirus software that panics when it sees self-modifying code will still kill us dead dead dead, though. If anything, the situation with antivirus will be worse; Shandalar.dll modifies the in-memory image of Shandalar.exe extensively at startup.

If that's the case... then, yeah, I'm pretty sure most anti-virus will go crazy (self-modifying code does that). Strangely, Kaspersky doesn't seem to mind (at least on my computer).

---------//-----------

Teraunce: I'd really recommend first trying to run Shandalar.exe with AV turned off. It seems like the most likely culprit to me, at this point. Regarding DEP... try running this command on the command line:

wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy

If it says "0", "1" or "2", then DEP shouldn't be a problem (it is only a problem if it says "3"). In my case, I have "2" (which means that DEP is activated only for Windows components and services), and it doesn't seem to interfere with Shandalar.exe

Again... best of luck

DEP is set at 2. Comodo isn't minding shandalar.dll any at all nor is it sandboxing it. I don't know how to check for ASLR. Below I'll be attaching an XML version of the application log.

Faulting application name: Shandalar.exe, version: 6.1.0.0, time stamp: 0x3517e16d
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x73274d66
Faulting process id: 0xcf0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d09ce9dd3cb175
Faulting application path: C:\Games\Shandalar2012\Program\Shandalar.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: 1dbb3b40-08dd-11e5-a10e-00266c3ccfdb

So.. yeah.. if anyone knows what's happening at 0x73274d66, maybe we can get to the bottom of this... (all mentions of Shandalar.exe in the event log point to this address)

In case it's not obvious, exception code 0xC000041D means that an unhandled exception was encountered during a user callback. Without knowing what's happening at that address, it's not easy to figure out what's going wrong.

No easy way to tell just from the event log. For me, the address is in the middle of dsound.dll.

Process Explorer is the easiest way to find that out that I'm aware of, unless you already happen to have a debugger installed.

The way I made everything work was simple. Do you have a working manalink 3 folder. If so extract or move all of the items Rom the ruined tower zip file to the manalink folder. Then it just plays but it asks me if I want to run it cause it is from the internet lol