Again, thanks Pobs. Am having all sorts of fun now with all the downloads.
Just discovered the thread on the windower, too, so once I screw up my courage, I may even try that!

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ub...tml#Post2958982

EAW is an incredible flight sim, with all the work everyone has put into it.

Thanks again,

Chuck

Chuck,

don't forget that its much more fun to fly with other people.... grab Gameranger and come and have a fly ...

cheers,



Pobs

Hey guys,
First off, thanks a lot for 1.28e, after the garbled briefing screens and frequent crashes (of the computer, not the aircraft) I hadn't played EAW much over the past few years, but I'm delighted to say that 1.28e brings it back, bigger and better. There are a few minor problems I'm having, though. Firstly, the game sometimes crashes in single mission mode with the "Late ETO" planeset, giving me a message to the gist of "This program has encountered an error and needs to close". It seems to happen randomly, though, so it just an annoyance rather than a major issue for me.
Recently I've found something that bothers me a bit more. I've been playing a 1943 British campaign with a SpitIX and was doing fairly well. The game seems to crash every time it tries to give me a Distinguished Service Order. I get the debriefing screen, then it plays the 'medals' music with a black screen, then it crashes. Unlike the other crashes, this one comes up with an error number (sorry, I can't remember it, the next time it happens I'll write it down) in a dialogue box similar to the Error 7217 crash. I thought it was odd because it had already let me win the DFC without any problems. I replayed the mission twice, got the DSO twice, and it crashed each time in the same way. Then I played the mission a fourth time, didn't win the DSO and it let me go to the barracks screen no problem. The next time it happens I'll write down the error number and post it here, but I thought I'd just put it out here and see if anybody else had noticed an error like this.
My computer is an Intel core i7 with Vista and 6GB RAM and I use the ATI Radeon 4800 graphics card. The rest of the game works perfectly and crashes extremely rarely.
Thanks, it's great to play EAW again, when I get an internet connection to my home computer someday I might be able to join you gents online.

Hi,
It just happened again, the dialogue box calls it "Error 162". I'm not sure what to make of it. Thanks.

Hi Hilux, a google search for runtime error 162 gave me this :

'How to Fix Runtime error 162?

To fix Runtime error 162, you should understand the concept of Runtime error 162 and identify the causes of it firstly. What is Runtime error 162? This error usually occurs when a DLL file is missing, or not registered on your computer. It is a really common problem for windows users which crashes now and then.'

and :

'How to Fix Runtime Error 162 Instantly?

Runtime Error 162 is referring to your Windows registry. Every time you install or uninstall a program, a 'signature' of the action was registered in the Windows registry. With so many combinations of records that overlap each other - especially bad installation, you will get a registry that is full of broken entries. These corrupted files will make Windows lost every time you try to start any program for that matter. Therefore, to fix Runtime Error 162, you need to fix the corrupted registry entries at first. Runtime Error 162 is one of the common runtime errors that annoy many Windows system users. You can try to uninstall and reinstall the application which caused Runtime Error 162. However, it is a time consuming way to fix Runtime Error 162 like that.'

so it would seem that it is a problem with a dll file. Beyond that I can't help at this moment. One other possibility that occurs to me is that we may not have resized the images for the medals to the new format. I will check on that...


cheers,


Pobs

Thanks Pobs,
I should have thought to look on Google. As it is, I did a registry scan with a program called CCleaner and let it fix all the registry errors it found, but I'm afraid it didn't get rid of the problem. I don't know much about DLL files; I've checked that the installation has the same number of DLLs as an older version of EAW and that they are the same size, but I'm not sure that tells you much. I think it's quite bizarre - after all, it let me win a DFC earlier in the career. Could it be something specific to the DSO? Do they use different DLL files?

two things come to mind....

1. the dso image is causing a problem... or

2. there is an attached video sequence trying to play after the award, we know the smacker videos wont work with modern OS and vid drivers. ( not very likely though if it is the grpagics of the medal itself that doesn't appear).


have you tried it in the windower? this seems to solve a lot of video driver issues so it may be worth trying it to narrow down the problem a bit..

cheers,


Pobs

Guys,
the only time I have ever encountered a "runtime" error
was when installing OAW without Jel's runtime files. I will
bet that if you re-install Jel's runtime files, it will fix
your problem. If not, please have a drink on me!

http://www.sandbagger.uk.com/jelly/JelsVB6Runtimes.zip

If this does not fix your problem, I would re-install 1.28e
over again......and make sure the runtime files are already installed.
AO

Thanks guys, I've tried out using the D3Dwindower and installing Jel's runtime files. Unfortunately the game still crashed when I got the DSO. I've reinstalled the game (using an clean copy of the contents of the EAW CD) to a new directory, but without knowing how to copy my campaign files across it will take some time before I can recreate the error again.
Off topic a little, when I was trying to recreate the error the campaign (611 SQN RAF, starting in 1943 with the Late ETO plane set) skipped over 6 months from late April 1944 to January 1945. Is it supposed to do that, or did my character get a whopper of a hangover in London?
Hold that drink Angleoff, I'll let you know if it crashes again on the new installation, but it might take a few days.
Thanks again guys, Hilux

Hilux,

your campaign savegames are in the 'savedata' folder in a 'careerXX.sve' format, just drop them over into the savedata folder in your new install


cheers,


Pobs