Help with strange behaviour

[Voodoo Daddy]

I was wondering if anyone could help me with this. First i'll give you the specs on my machine.

Win. XP Home

Althon 3200+

1 gig ram

XFX G Force 5700 Graphics card

160 gig hard drive.

Cable Broadband

Ever since I have been playing online I have had AVG anti- Virus (NO Norton on the machine)

and Zone Alarm firewall. never had any conflicts with either program. Never had any problems installing Emp on this machine, I used the install fix and the 1.09 patch. And Apoll's AI patch and multi-player patch. Also with no problems. Also the problem below occours with the AVG and Zone Alarm turned off.

OK now for the problem. Whenever I play Emp (either single or Lan or online) when I hit "Play" or "Accept"  I get a message that says "No disk, Please insert an Emp disk in the drive" If I hit ok, because there IS a disk in the drive, it does nothing. If I hit cancel, it goes back the the launch screen. Now if I am online and the host hits "/start" I CAN play, the game will go to the connection screen. but I cannot hit "Accept" and play that way.

So the first thing I did was to uninstall then re-install emp and the shared internet components. NO help.

Then I thought, ahh maybe I installed the last time off of the DVD drive, so I put the disk in there. NO good. So I thought maybe I had turned off Autorun and it wasn't "seeing" the disk, but autorun is enabled on both drives. Then just for the hell of it, I tried putting a disk in BOTH drives, and it worked, I can join and host. Does anyone have any ideas?

Also, I have not downloaded or installed any new programs or drivers lately.

Thanks, Voodoo

[erjin999]

Right, sounds like a case for the install patch ! ...what do you mean "you have already tried that" ?

Damn. Didnt work, you say ?

Right, so if you put the cd into one of the two drives on the computer, doesnt matter which one, it doesnt work, when you put the disk into both drives it works ?

Easiest way out would be the NoCD Patch, do you have any objections to trying that ?

[Voodoo Daddy]

Right, so if you put the cd into one of the two drives on the computer, doesnt matter which one, it doesnt work, when you put the disk into both drives it works ?

Yes exactly, like cd drive-Atr disk, dvd drive-Hark disk

No, I don't have any objections to trying anything, but first, what is it? And what does it do? Cause I have plenty of EMP cd's. Lots in fact.

[erjin999]

The NoCD Patch negates the need for ANY cds to play the game, meaning you could lose the CDs, or just pack them away for a rainy day. Becuase you are having issues with the CD being requested, the patch should mean the CD is no longer asked for, meaning you dont need the CD in both drives.

It doesnt seem to have any other side effects for me, but someone (spicy ?) mentioned that it can cause crashes in skirmish play...or was it campaign ? I will try to dig out the thread for you...

Try it, just make a copy of your Game.exe and Emperor.exe files and keep them safe, then you can always go back to them.

[Voodoo Daddy]

Hey Nunu, that did the trick! I liked it so well that I did it to all my machines. Now I don't have to keep the disk in my laptop when I'm on the road in my "Mobile Command Center" Very cool indeed.

Thanks, Voodoo

[erjin999]

No problem, glad you liked it, although its hard not to !

Thanks erjin !  ;)

[whistler]

Hey Guys,

I just got the patch as well. I hate keeping cd's in my drives. I had one in the so long it renamed itself and became depressed and killed itself.  Everytime I rebooted it, it whined and buzzed. Now I have the freedom to do what I want. "what's in your drive?"

[erjin999]

Hehe, was that the Microsoft "Where do you want to go today" or am I just being too imaginative ? :P

The patch is excellent and saves time. Everyone shoudl use it.