Well. Guess I am done playing Caesar IV.

I installed Windows 8 three nights ago and this morning I reinstalled Caesar IV. During the install process it had me download the Microsoft .NetFramework.

Anyhow I tried playing to see how well it would work in Windows 8, I was previously playing it on Windows 7 without any problems but it won't work for me on Windows 8.

I started off trying to test it with my last saved game and it kept telling me the saved game was invalid then it would close the game client completely. Then I remembered I forgot to apply the 1.2 game patch thinking that was probably the reason why so I installed that but no dice.

I re-tried and re-tried to no avail. I then tried just running the default Kingdom & Republic games but they won't work either. The default scenarios would begin, I see the pre-game map of the city, listen to the narrator and then click the "Begin" button but in the process of loading the game map it gives me that error message again about the saved game file not being valid.

I tried running the game using the Windows Compatibility Mode set to Windows 7 (since it worked in Windows 7 for me before) but that didn't help either. I was really expecting that to fix it but it didn't.

I don't know what else to try.

I'll come back if I ever find a solution for this.

EDIT: (9+ hours later)

Okay I solved the problem and can play Caesar IV again. I am not sure exactly what fixed it or what caused the problem to begin with but here's the story in case it can help someone else in the near future.

Earlier this morning when I re-installed Caesar IV onto my fresh Windows 8 operating system I found out I was not able to play Caesar IV anymore. It worked for me in Windows 7 but not Windows 8. I tried the Compatibility Mode selecting Windows 7 and that didn't work. I even tried Compatibility Mode for Vista and again for Windows XP Service Pack 3 and those didn't work either. I grudingly accepted my fate of not being able to play Caesar IV anymore.

I went looking through old game discs for something else to play. I had Pharoah, Cleopatra, Zeus, Caesar III, and World of Tanks and several types of the Age of Empires games. I tried Cleopatra and Caesar III and also World of Tanks. Each of those didn't work either, it gave me an error message about missing the D3DX9_43.DLL file. After a lengthy search online for a reliable solution I came across this webpage on Microsoft's site -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179113?wa=wsignin1.0

It then led me to this page -

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

Even though Windows 8 includes DirectX 11.0 already I went ahead and downloaded and ran the file from that second link. That download does not overwrite existing files but it will add/replace anything that you may not have. After that install I was able to run World of Tanks so I knew it worked.

Meanwhile, back at the batcave (Caesar IV) I wanted to try and fix this issue about invalid saved game files that prevent me from playing and cause the game to exit. I did some more searching and I stumbled upon this post at the Tilted Mill forums -

http://tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13262

I was like YAY! this will work. So I found the RegisterDLL.bat file the post spoke of, right-clicked it and chose Run As Administrator, it ran but unfortuntely it still didn't help me. So I said "P... on it!" and decided to uninstall Caesar IV and every folder it creates in your

"C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\!MY INSTALLS\Caesar IV\" folder. I wanted to make sure I removed every trace of the game to get a clean re-install. I did not uninstall the MySQL that the game needs since that is a separate entity.

Anyhow, I reinstalled the game, didn't make any changes to the game settings, choose the first scenario in the Kingdom campaign and luckily I got in. Woot!

I paused the game and created a save of it to see if I could reload a saved game file. It worked.

I opened the Saved Game folder and put all my former saved games back into it and tried to run a couple. Boo! Hiss! They didn't work, but I didn't expect them too since I hadn't yet re-applied the game's 1.2 patch. I patched the game, changed the game settings to my liking and loaded up my Kingdom 1 saved game and it worked. I then gave the final test and tried to load one of my former saved games - the ones that were causing the game to crash 9 hours earlier and they worked.

Again, I don't know what broke to begin with or what ended up fixing it but here's my best guess looking back --

Windows 8 already comes with the latest update of DirectX 11.0 as I mentioned above so it shouldn't be causing me any problems. What I think happened though was when I first tried installing Caesar IV onto my fresh install of Windows 8, during the installation process Caesar IV wants to install DirectX 9. I allowed it thinking it would notice the updated DirectX 11.0 and the skip that part of the install but I think it may have overwriten some of the files.

So if you install Caesar IV and you are already running a newer version of DirectX just skip that part of the installation, you can always go back to the Caesar IV disc and install that part it if need be.

If you are unsure how to check what version of DirectX you have you can do this:

In Windows 7 and earlier (Vista, XP etc) click on the Start Menu button and find the Run link. Click that and in the Run box type "dxdiag" (no quotes) and hit enter. It will run a diagnostics on your system that you can save for future reference if you want. It will show you what version of DirectX you have among other things.

In Windows 8 press the Windows key + X and choose Run then do the same thing I mentioned above, type in "dxdiag" (no quotes) then hit enter to get your report.

I hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by Poorman (edited 12-08-2012 @ 10:42 PM).]