Installing/patching/playing AO on Windows Vista / 7

[Honorbound]

In this post you can find general guidelines to follow in order to avoid the most commonly encountered issues when installing, patching and running the game, especially on Windows Vista and Windows 7, such as:

• Game settings are not saved or reverting to a "static" state at each login
• Keyboard bindings are not saved, reverting to a default state or everything becomes unassigned after patching
• Patching fails with "checksum error" messages
• Patching appears to be successful, but you see corrupt textures, geometry, missing items and/or icons, excessive amounts of "no ldb intern" info text or messages
• You experience crashes when attempting to zone into certain playfields or when approaching a certain area within a playfield

INSTALLATION

IMPORTANT: DO NOT INSTALL THE GAME TO THE DEFAULT "C:\PROGRAM FILES\FUNCOM\ANARCHY ONLINE\" LOCATION (OR TO ANY OTHER LOCATION ANYWHERE INSIDE "C:\PROGRAM FILES" FOR THAT MATTER) OFFERED BY THE INSTALLER. EVER. NO EXCEPTIONS. I MEAN IT. SERIOUSLY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Instead, specify a custom install location completely outside of "C:\Program Files", such as "C:\Games\Anarchy Online\". This alone will most likely prevent most issues from ever arising.

Be patient when running the installer

Vista and Win7 behaves oddly when you run extremely large executable (.exe) files, such as the AO installer. Once you have launched the installer, it might appear as if it crashed or locked up; seemingly nothing will happen for a long time. It takes several minutes (even up to 15-20 minutes delays were reported in extreme cases) for the OS to do its thing and finally let the installation begin.

If you already have the game installed under C:\Program files, you HAVE to move it to a suitable location:

1. If you are using a limited OS user account (which you should, as opposed to using a user account with admin priviledges) for everyday tasks and gaming, make sure you are logged in with that and NOT with the admin account
2. Locate the "Anarchy Online" folder in "C:\Program Files\Funcom"
3. Copy (Important: COPY (Copy/Paste), and NOT MOVE (Cut/Paste) it, otherwise you'll be moving the very cause of the problem too.) the entire "Anarchy Online" folder itself, with all of its content to a locaton completely outside of "C:\Program Files", eg. into "C:\Games"
4. Update your Desktop / Start menu shortcuts to point to the "Anarchy.exe" file in the new location
5. Launch AO from the new location and log in with any of your characters. If you find that your prefs/settings have been lost (window positions reset to default, backpacks lost their names, etc.), exit from AO and recover them:
   
   1. You'll need to use a 3rd party file manager application as the folder you'll need to work with is not accessible when starting out from "Start > My Computer" or using "Windows Explorer"
   2. Rename the "Prefs" folder currently present in your new AO install location
   3. Go to the "C:\Users\<OS username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Funcom\Anarchy Online" folder where you should see a "Prefs" folder
   4. Copy this entire "Prefs" folder from the above location with all of its content into the new AO install folder
   5. Launch AO again from the new location and log in with any of your characters
6. If AO starts up correctly and your prefs/setting appear to be in order, you can uninstall the original AO installation to reclaim the HDD space. You can delete the "C:\Users\<OS username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Funcom\Anarchy Online" folder if there was one, and also delete the renamed "Prefs" folder created in the new AO install location while reclaiming your prefs from VirtualStore if you had to do it.

Hint: AO doesn't really have to be actually "installed". Once you have a working installation, you can simply copy the "Anarchy Online" folder around to another location or computer, to an USB stick, you can archive and burn it to a CD/DVD as it is as a backup then restore it from there if needed. It'll work just fine.


PATCHING

• Make sure AO is NOT installed anywhere within "C:\Pogram Files". If it is, you have to move it as described in the Installation section before attempting to patch.
• If you are using a limited OS user account (which you should, as opposed to using a user account with admin priviledges) for everyday tasks and gaming, make sure you are logged in with that and NOT with the admin account.
• If you are using any realtime virus scanner application, you may need to disable/suspend it before clicking on the "Patch" button in the AO launcher, for the duration of the entire patching process.
• When you get an UAC propt for the patcher during patching, provide login credentials for an OS user account with administrator priviledges.
• Once the patcher finished patching, DO NOT use the "Start Anarchy Online" button at the bottom of the patcher window. Exit the patcher then start the game with the regular shortcut. (Explanation: a process which received elevated priviledges through UAC may also spawn any child processes with the same elevated priviledges; if you use this button, the game client may also run with admin priviledges and in this case any file it creates or modifies in this session may become inaccessible for other OS user accounts.)
• If you are using a firewall application which may have a signature based executable verification feature, you will have to verify/refresh the signatures stored by the firewall to make sure it will allow AO to connect to the internet, since pretty much all patches replace the AO exectuables to newer versions.

PLAYING

• Make sure AO is NOT installed anywhere within "C:\Pogram Files". If it is, you have to move it as described in the Installation section before attempting to play.
• Disable the Secure Desktop function in UAC which tends to crash AO every time it displays a warning, by lowering the UAC notification level from 4 (default) to 3 (works the same as level 4 only without the Secure Desktop "blackouting"): Start > Control Panel (set to Category view) > System and Security > Change User Account and Control Settings (subheading of the topmost heading).
• If you are using a limited OS user account (which you should, as opposed to using a user account with admin priviledges) for everyday tasks and gaming, make sure you are logged in with that and NOT with the admin account.
• Always use the same OS user account to play AO.
• Make sure your firewall has proper rules which allow AO to access all required ports and port ranges (TCP 7500-7600, TCP 7101-7103, TCP 80, TCP 443, TCP 4077).

REPAIRING THE INSTALLATION

If you suspect that your installation may have been corrupted by a failed patch, antivirus interference or any other cause, there's an official tool that might be able to repair it without having to redownload and reinstall the entire game.
The tool and the instructions on using it can be found here (the post itself is quite old, but I believe it doesn't matter as the tool seems to use a server side file manifest or something which is kept up to date): Corrupted files or patching problem?

[alfora]

big bump and request to root this

[Venachar]

Means stickied it before I could

Thanks very much Honorbound, I appreciate you doing this after we spoke about it Hopefully it'll be a great help to the Vista-using community.

Best Regards,

[CriticalDmg]

A fail-safe coding of AO & it's installation can do that... next patch FC can just force everyone with Vista move the folder elsewhere (or copy elsewhere/delete original).
(through in a fail-safe world map selection while their at it)

[alfora]

A fail-safe coding of AO & it's installation can do that... next patch FC can just force everyone with Vista move the folder elsewhere (or copy elsewhere/delete original).
(through in a fail-safe world map selection while their at it)

I wouldn't like ANY program moving my files around.

But I would like EVERY program to let me choose the place where it should install.


For AO it would be best if the installer tells you about the issues with Vista and recommends another installation directory BEFORE it installs anything. Oh, and yes, make the map selection fail-safe. If a map makes troubles choose a default map and tell the user. If the default map also fails, tell the user. Never just crash.

[Shevrosmurf]

I would like to add something that may help or help some people.

This works when you are on a account with administrator privilages.
I think most users have their own account setup as standard and has the possibility
of admin rights. (if not on account with admin rights, this will not be possible!)

Rightmouse on the AO shortcut and click Properties. Head to the tab compatibility.
Below there is a square you can mark which says : Execute program as administrator.

Click OK and now AO should run with administrator privilages and also call the client
and patcher as such. I think even when installed under Program Files it will allow file
changes and not cause problems, but I strongly recommend when installing AO to avoid
the Program Files location.

When running in admin mode you will get the annoying question if you really want to be sure
to run the program as such, and ofcourse you accept. I myself have the question window turned
off, but will no go into this as this is not a basic windows feature and to not have average users
get confused.

If you want to be sure that all executables are running in admin mode you can go to the map
you installed AO and do the same as for the shortcut on: Clientd.exe, Anarchypatcher.exe.
This will have these run as admin also as standard.

Please mention changes where I named the buttons or whatever wrong. I am not using the
english version of windows, so I hope I named them right and I also did the .exe file names
as I think it was. I am currently not home to check the names.

Hope this helped as well and let me know if I said anything is not correct.
This is with UAC still on btw.

[Dooma]

There are just 3 plain things to do before playing ao under vista:

1. Disable UAC (why turn it off? because it does not increase your protection its a lie to secure the user not the system.)
2. Be an Admin (This can be a risk however, if you don't want to be an admin yourself you must set AO's rights to be started with adminrights inside its own folder)
3. Install AO in a selfmade Folder (like "c:\games\anarchy\")

Then it will work.

Sidenote:
There are special protected folders in Windows Vista. (e.g. Windows | Program Files | Users ) These folders and the running programs need their writing rights configured manually if the program inside the folder needs adminrights itself to run. Most programs today do not need adminrights to run and configuration of programs starting other programs inside these folders is quite a nightmare in Vista. So my recommendation ist to set up folders for user programs manually and leave the Vista protected s*** alone.

[Demoder]

to OP: Please also note: Same tricks apply for Windows 7 (the next Windows version)

[Con]

Im about to go into no mans land, gonna try to use Windows 7 beta and run AO. It's either that or I use 64bit vista but my buddy told me Windows 7 is better so idk. I'm the wrong person to be trying this and I probably wont get it working for a while but we will see how it goes.

[airwolf]

I see all these solutions for Vista. But what about problems with XP (since i believe XP is still the more used OS.) I cant update AO past 17.2.2_EP1. It keeps saying
"Unable to save settings in C:/Program Files/Funcom/Anarchy Online/Prefs/Prefs.xml. Make sure you have sufficient permissions to write this file." The thing is...I do have the persmissions, they all have full control. What else can be done?

[Honorbound]

I see all these solutions for Vista. But what about problems with XP (since i believe XP is still the more used OS.) I cant update AO past 17.2.2_EP1. It keeps saying
"Unable to save settings in C:/Program Files/Funcom/Anarchy Online/Prefs/Prefs.xml. Make sure you have sufficient permissions to write this file." The thing is...I do have the persmissions, they all have full control. What else can be done?

I've been thinking about reworking this into a general "Common causes of installation/patching issues, especially on Vista" kind of thing (and, apparently, I probably should) as most of what's in the OP actually applies to both XP and Vista, except the parts about UAC which is Vista specific. They are only a lot more likely to cause problems on Vista as XP is more forgiving in this regard.

Considering this, make sure any other possible causes mentioned in the OP are eliminated (including, and starting with, copying the game installation outside of Program Files). When the OS says you don't have permissions, then it doesn't matter what you think you have, you do not in fact have effective permissions (which is a different thing than specified permissions) and that's that. The permission system is a rather complex thing, easy to get lost in or mess something up with even when you know quite well how it works.

Simple tests:
- Log in with the OS user account you've tried patching with.
- Copy the current Prefs.xml to some safe place so that you can restore it after testing.
- Open the original Prefs.xml with Notepad, hit enter a few times at the top of the file to add a few blank lines, then try to save it. After saving, close and reopen to see if the added empty lines are in fact there.
- Try deleting the current Prefs.xml file.
- Once deleted, try to create a new file with Notepad, using Prefs.xml as filename (or any other name for that matter) in the Prefs folder.
- Try to add some content to this new file then save it, then reopen to see if the added content is there.

If any of these steps failed with an error message, or the changes you tried to make didn't take place, then you got permission problems.

Another thing you can try is simply deleting the whole Prefs folder and all of its content (copying it to some other location first doesn't hurt, just in case, but it will get invalidated by the patches still to be applied anyway), then reapply the patch that failed.
When patching up from an older full client install the first time without actually having played the game on that installation, the patcher shouldn't expect to find a Prefs folder at all as normally it is only created upon the first successful login (or using the Settings button in the launcher) thus there can't yet be one. It only needs to be able to modify files inside it according to patch requirements if it is an installation which lacks only the latest patch, but been played previously.

[Dooma]

I see all these solutions for Vista. But what about problems with XP (since i believe XP is still the more used OS.) I cant update AO past 17.2.2_EP1. It keeps saying
"Unable to save settings in C:/Program Files/Funcom/Anarchy Online/Prefs/Prefs.xml. Make sure you have sufficient permissions to write this file." The thing is...I do have the persmissions, they all have full control. What else can be done?

Maybe you have Permission to write data inside this folder, but probably AO's executable hasn't.

Like Honorbound said already, setting permissions in Windows is and was a true nightmare, always.

I'd recommend not to use any Windows protected folder [C:/Program Files/ belongs to this category]. Trying to set individual permissions inside these special folders, can be done, but i don't think its needed outside an office environment.

So please do NOT try to install AO inside "Program Files", this ist the cause for most issues. All programs installed in this folder only have user permissions, even for their own folders and sub-folders. This is part of the protection.

Install AO inside a "self-made" folder, like C:\games\anarchy or C:\AO
AO's executable needs Admin rights to run.
You need Adminrights to run it.

[airwolf]

Ok I can try those solutions. I appreciate it, thank you

[airwolf]

Ok, I have tried that, got everything to work. Now I get the "An unsupported operation was attempted" (Im stuck at 17.5.2_EP1). Ive tried everything that the forums have suggested. INCLUDING replaceing the new version of the patcher with an older version of the patcher. As soon as i run the older version though, it gets replaced by the new version. How do I stop that, or how do I manually patch since the patches on the website will only run the newer version. What am I doing wrong? (Dont forget I do use XP.)

[Dooma]

Try to shut down firewall and antivirus for the patching. Maybe something is being blocked.

Try to delete the downloaded patch and download again.

Try this Patch: ftp://ftp.funcom.com/cd/patches/AOPa...17.5.3_EP1.exe

Other manual patches here: ftp://ftp.funcom.com/cd/patches

[airwolf]

Manual patches dont work. Even after turning off all my security, Firewalls...excepting all cookies and what not. Its like XP doesnt like any version of the AO patcher whether its new, old, ancient. Nothing is working. Thank you for trying dooma. If you have any other suggestions would be greatful.

[Dooma]

Thats weird.. manual patches should work.

I heard of one person having a similar problem and this was caused by a pirated windowscopy. He reinstalled from a fresh genuine disk and it worked.

Other than that you could try patching in safemode (hit F8 before windows boot).

Also did you check that no files inside the anarchy folder are write protected? If they are the patcher cannot do its work. But that should create another type of failure message.

But i must say i am running out of ideas. There must be something seriously wrong with your system.

[airwolf]

noo i screwed up lol. With the older version of the patcher. I copied all but like 3 letters of what i was supposed to do when i was supposed to "run" it. (if that makes sense) Im ingame now, and working fine. Thank you all for your help

[Cadey]

Actually, what FC should do is get off their lazy arses and fix this!!! I dread to think how much potential new business has been lost to other games because people don't want to wade through all this...

Incidentally, i've just completed a client download onto my lappy and patching failed. WinXP install on lappy is 100% genuine and bang up to date, all security software off, AO in Games folder outside of Programs Folder and still it doesn't patch. Fixed by copying client from my desktop, but that ain't gonna work for an AO virgin. Perhaps Blizzard have hacked the patcher to deny FC new business... hehe

[Demoder]

I just ran into the issue with the AO patcher not being able to download patches properly (halting 1KB short of a successfull download). This was with testlive, of course. I added that directory to my security suites exception list (ie. it won't do checks on stuff in that folder, and won't scan the traffic anything in that folder is doing), and it worked. This was with ESET Nod32 v4 on Windows 7 x64 RC.

tl;dr: As someone else posted earlier, switching off the security suite might help fix the issue with downloading patches.