Game's won't run twice
 

In windows 2000, i can't get my games to run twice. I run them once fine, then quit, come back later to find them totaly unresponsive.(I click the icon, the small hourglass appears next to the pointer, then immediatly disappears. Like i hadn't clicked on anything.) I have a gateway. 700mhz with 384MB's of SDRam, and a ATI Radeon 9000 pro. This seems to only happen to games.(NFSHP2, MOHAA, GTA3, those are all i've seen with the problem.)


A maybe related Problem: In Nero burning software and some regular applications, they give me an error that the EXE has been modifyed and needs to be reinstalled.

you have a gateway. thats the problem. format immediately.

(seriously though, if you havnt formatted it since you got it i suggest you do so to get all their spyware off.)

yeah /me agree's with teh master ninja format the gateway, i never run a computer with the stuff on that it oringinaly came with, nero might be a cut down version (they dristibute it a lot with writers now instead of full software) you could get the full version with **cough** kazaa lite **cough**:rolleyes: :rolleyes: ;)

i have reformatted since i got it. Could it be that its because i didn't reformatt after installing my new video card? I just need you to tell me how to reformatt using windows 2000, the win98 gateway restoration disk won't work on a NTFS file system. A kid a school said i should make a boot disk and press f5 or something? The bell had rang and i didn't quite hear all he said.

I would also recomend running adaware or a program like that to check your system for any spyware that might be kicking in at somestage. It doesn't hurt to try... Gateways might have stuff open to to those things... I had one that locked up my Cd rom for 30 seconds ever hour or so and everything would freeze... Yeh or you could just reinstall ..

so does anyone know how to reformatt using windows 2000?

go into dos type format c: then press enter

I had a similar error once, it means you have been attacked by the win95cih virus, get a virus scanner and remove it immediatly.

today's hilarious fact about DOS - it can't read NTFS partitions.

just start up with the win2k disk, it asks you if you want to reinstall over, or reformat the drive...

edit: yeah, i think your problems are probably virus/gateway related though...

Clarification...

the Win2000 CD is bootable. (Hopefully... if it is, you're sorted.)

If not, make a set of W2k boot floppies (4) and do it that way... the setup program can deal with partitioning and formatting.

I dont think its a virus, and its unlikely to be a gateway problem, probably just that your install of windows has gone sour.

But before you re-install, check whats running in the background when these problems occur. Also run msconfig.exe and check whats starting at boot.

If you still want to reinstall from scratch, and you have a full copy of win2k with it then its pretty easy.

Firstly, backup everything you want to keep (either to cdr/cdrw or another hard drive). Then boot from the cd, when you reach the partition selection utility, delete your existing windows partition and create a new one. Format it with the ntfs file system and continue installing.

Once its up and running, download the newest stable versions of drivers for all your hardware.

If you have a rescue cd instead of a proper windows cd (which seems to be fairly common with prebuilt systems nowdays) then you'll have to use that and hope it works with your changed hardware, or get another copy of windows. I'd reccomend XP home, either the oem version (you'll need to buy some hardware with it) or the upgrade, whichever is cheaper where you live.

Heres another question: I've noticed that windows runs alot of programs that are taking up ram in the "Processes" tab. But they aren't really doing anything. When i disable them everything still works fine. Is there any way i stop them from starting with windows? They aren't in the start up folder.

Run msconfig
Not sure about Win2k, but in Win9x/ME you can start it via:
Start -> Run -> msconfig
It's in a different location in WinXP, and you run it via the shortcut in:
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> (Microsoft) System Configuration Tool/Utilty

Go to the Startup tab and uncheck all non-essential items.
Be careful not to do too many at once, and don't uncheck anything essential.

You can find a useful list of Startup programs) and whether they're required or not) here:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup...artup_full.htm
http://www.lafn.org/webconnect/mento...p/PENINDEX.HTM



Hey, did you fix your other problem with *.EXE files?

It could be a virus, or it could be that sectors of your hard drive are damaged.
It can't be CiH virus (as suggested above) because it only affects Win9x systems.
Are you using the same pc now? Because if you are, then if it is a virus, it can't affect all .EXE files otherwise you wouldn't be able to use IE or any other programs.

Maybe it's the shortcuts which are damaged?
Try right clicking them -> properties, and check the command line is correct.
Also, try running the actual EXE file from the source dir
(eg. C:\Program Files\Game\Game.exe)

You should also run CHKDSK to scan your hard drive for errors.
Run a thorough check with surface scan (this might take some time on large HDD's).

Make sure your anti-virus software is bang up to date and run it asap.

I'm not 100% sure what, but something is definitely amiss . . .

msconfig is not included in win2k.

here's a version for it, though.

Well I never, lol.
I wonder why MS left out such an essential tool, the sneaky cheapskates! ;)

There's always Mike Lin's StartUp Control Panel.
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

it's a "professional" OS - anything in the startup should either be there, or not be installed...

pah, I'm having none of that! :p
XP is a professional OS, and msconfig is included!
You telling me there's no way to disable startup crap in default Win2k without manually editing the registry?
Plenty of software puts all kinds of unnecessary resource-hogging crap in the registry startup menus. Hey, so now we know why so many people complain about their Win2k systems getting bogged down all the time. hehe ;) :D
(well, especially on older, lower-end systems anyway)

WEll the origonal problem is fixed, but i had to do a whole reformatt. Everything is running fine now. I only have a problem with one game, and i have no idea how to fix it. Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2, every once in a while i have to reinstall it because it tells me the files are corrupt or the registry. I'll run it a few times fine, then i get that error. I don't think its related to my original problem though.

they did it to make room for "spider solitare"...the one game that nobody knows how to play :)

i have no doubt it's hidden in "administrative tools" with everything else i can never find :D - you know you can format disks in there?

I know how to play spider solitare but its complicated to explain in one post. Look at the help files that come with it, oh and spider uses about 500K, its not that big so surely its pinball that they had 2 delete msconfig for!, and u get it and pinball and ms config in winME!

Do you mean the demo version we download are not the full version after we enter the serial? (don't ask me where the serial came from, ok?)