NAM won't install on Amazon's SC4 Deluxe Edition Download

[Dracoceros 33]

Hi. I have both the CD version of Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition, and the Amazon.com download version of SC4:DLXE. The CD version will absolutely not work with Windows 10. In addition, I have installed the patch twice already to my PC for Amazon's Deluxe Edition/Rush Hour; but NAM is somehow ignoring the fact that the version is up to date and keeps telling me to install the patch from SC4Devotion's Website. I don't know what to do right now, except play the game "as is". The download game is located on my desktop, but the CD game is located in Program Files. I think that NAM is trying to access my Program Files and check if it's there. How do I get around this "check"? There is no option currently to check for another location before it checks the version.

 

So, the solution I found to work was doing a system recovery on Windows by wiping all of the files and such from the computer on Windows 10 Pro, and then downloading to the desktop via the Amazon Downloader, and choosing to install from the option in the downloader. Then, select install from Maxis' Installer, leave the directory default, and proceed as normal.

I'll let you know if mods work with this solution. Cheers,

 

Brandon N Thomason

[rsc204 21,804]

Did you uninstall the CD version when you installed the digital one?

I'm guessing you didn't. All the NAM installer needs to do is verify that your SimCity 4.exe file is genuine and patched to 1.1.638.0 (EP1). Now, running the patch will always give you a message that it ran successfully, probably the dumbest message I know of. Because in reality, if you check the text file - patchlog.txt - which is created in the location the patch was run from, it will tell you if the patches have actually been applied or not. Anyhow, that's really a red herring right now, so don't worry about it.

I suspect that the original is not correctly patched, but the registry entries are still pointing to it, not your new digital version. Hence the NAM installer fails. Simply remove all versions of SC4 you have installed on your machine. Reinstall the digital copy only. Then try installing the NAM once more. This time I would expect everything to work without problems.

[Dracoceros 33]

Ok, I uninstalled the CD version, but when I did, I attempted to uninstall the Amazon version first. However, instead of amazon's install being removed, the one in the Program Files was removed! The uninstaller won't uninstall the one on my desktop, and I cannot redirect it towards the uninstaller for the desktop!

Does anyone have any experience with having this issue? If you did and were able to solve it, please help me figure out what is going wrong.

To me, it seems like both a problem with Amazon's downloader and installer, as well as all of the plugin installers. In order to get around this, every single exe tool and installer would have to be reprogrammed from within to point to my download location.

 

Just to let you know, when I installed via amazon, it didn't really install... it just gave me a download option, and installed with downloading. The game works, oddly enough, in it's directory (it's in C:/Program Files (x86)/Sim City 4). However, this is not the correct directory.

[rsc204 21,804]

On the desktop is usually nothing more than a shortcut, this doesn't really have any bearing on the application itself.

Program Files (x86) is used by 64-Bit operating systems only, it's where all 32-Bit applications are installed. The actual directory SC4 is placed in doesn't matter. Since what we are talking about is how the registry links to it. This is all setup when you install an application. Where problems occur, is if you try to install a duplicate of something already installed. If the installer doesn't pick up on this, then you end up with registry entries pointing to the wrong places. That's why the NAM installer is failing, because the registry is telling it to look in a location that doesn't contain a valid patched copy of SC4. If the registry entry were pointing to the digital version, you should not see the error.

I don't know how Amazon's download works, having not used it. But I'm sure it does install the files somewhere on your hard disk. If you have successfully uninstalled one version of SC4. Once more the duplicated registry entries is messing things up. Without a third party application, which must have been installed before the application in question is installed in the first place. The only solution, however unintuitive it may sound, is to run the installer once more, so you can uninstall it. But if you can't clean your PC back to a working state, then you may continue to have problems.

A simpler solution could be to run System Restore, a utility included with Windows. If you have a restore point dated before you installed the second copy, you can revert to the system as it was before it was installed. Then you can uninstall the old version before installing the new one, in effect, giving you a second chance at doing it the right way.

[Dracoceros 33]

K, I just did a system recovery. It was the only way to completely wipe the system of the registry. But now, blasted Amazon is wanting to download to the Desktop location again! The whole game for Program Files. And when it downloaded, it asked me to install. I clicked install, and nothing happened. This is because it was already downloaded... and not installed.

 

Oddly enough, the game fails to play. I think the game was redirecting to the C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis directory when initially booting. Now, since it's not installed via CD to that directory, it is not detecting the game, and thus, fails to start.

My system is clean! I erased all files and settings, and performed a complete wipe. This shouldn't be happening in theory!

 

I tried to install NAM, and it tells me the game isn't up to date, and then tells me it could not find specified game.

 

EDIT: It appears that EA Games (Electronic Arts) does not have support for this game no longer, even after recent purchase. What a shame

 

EDIT #2: I've posted the solution above at the first post.

[rsc204 21,804]

5 hours ago, Gondracorn said:

And when it downloaded, it asked me to install. I clicked install, and nothing happened. This is because it was already downloaded... and not installed.

Is this your assessment of the situation, or did the program tell you that? Because that doesn't make sense? If the installer fails, it should present you with an error message.

You say your system is clean, but I can tell from your description of the problem, it is not. If the Amazon version is reporting errors, speak to their customer support. Legally speaking, they have to support you, or provide a refund. But if NAM is still seeing an .exe that is out of date, there must logically still be a disk-based version of SC4 installed somewhere. Because every digital release comes pre-patched.

Note that using System restore only reverts your system to how it was on that date. So if you uninstalled the CD version after that point, it will put it back again. So you probably still need to remove it once more.

If you know what you are doing, you could go through the registry manually removing all entries related to SC4. And also manually delete all files from your computer relating to SC4. But, beware that you can stuff your computer entirely doing this.

I usually wouldn't recommend it, but if you have no other choice, you may have to factory reset your system to get out of this loop. Once the registry becomes too broken, you either have to manually fix it, or find another way around the problem. Depending on how easy it is to restore your system, you may find a factory reset a preferable solution.