I was a bad boy :(

So, I was given a burned copy of Civ4 and I installed it on my computer and it ended up crashing while I was playing after about 20minutes, I decided to uninstall the game and buy a legal version. I bought the legal copy today and tried to install it but it does not give me the option, my computer still thinks that the illegal copy is installed, when I go into control panel and uninstall programs the illegal copy is still there but I can not uninstall b/c it cant find a certain file. I did the CCleaner registry cleaner after I uninstalled the burnt copy and now I think I screwed my self over. I know I prob deserve this for using a burnt copy......is there any hope to make this work......???

 

reformat the whole thing its nice, your laptop will be clean and happy again, and will let you install whatever you want.

 

Manually open the registry editor, search for civilization and delete all relevant keys.

 

I would rather avoid reformatting and leave that as a last resort....it is a fairly new computer only about 2 months old

 

How can I do that?

 

Press Windows Key + R, which will open the run box, and type in "regedit" (minus the quotes.) The go to Edit, Find, and type in civilization. Any keys or folders that you find that look like they came from the game, delete.

P.S. Before you delete anything, it might be a good idea to go to File, Export, and save a copy of the current registry, just in case you screw something up

 

Well, you could put the burned disc in and see if the file in question is on there. If not...you'll have to do it the very risky and messy way: run manual registry searches for everything pertaining to Civilization 4. It might be the maker of the game, or the game title, it's very hit and miss.

OR, if the game uses Windows Installer (not super likely), you can use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

 

Why can't you just reinstall it? If the launcher won't give you the option, just run setup.exe directly from the dvd.

 

Genius, i'll give that a shot before i mess with the registry

 

You say like reformatting is something bad for computer... but it is good for it! I normally make an image of a system partition while it is new, and then format that partition once every three-four months (depending on ho much torture I put in my laptop lol) and its new again and happy! it just takes a bit of you time really thats all..

 

Bad as if in it is boring and takes too long Besides one crashed game hardly merits a reformat.

 

Dang man, that stinks. Hope you can get it fixed and up and running

 

I would warn you, that utility/tool is rather powerful, but doesnt get rid of all installers that you need to get rid of, only some installations show up for some reason.

But in most cases, it should be able to get rid of any remains that the burned copy may have left behind.

 

Thanks for all the input, I did what Jalf recommended, that didn't even cross my mind, yet it was so easy, and everything is up and running now!

 

Thats can take forever, and you still got to be careful not to delete the structure it's under. Also Games and Apps don't always use their Title/Name in all the registry it installs. So searching for civilization will not be good enough. You'll have to probably search for the company's name etc:

 

I assume you're running Windows. WOW. That says quite a lot about the real world reliability of the Windows operating system. The part that confuses me is how people can pay money for a product and accept such poor reliability and performance as "normal".

 

Hopefully the need for these last resorts will be less common with Vista +1.

 

Well, for one a hacked/pirated version of a copied game can not even be close to actually being what the OS was intended for...

I wouldn't blame this one on Vista at all, I blame it on cracked software that was modified in unknown ways to force it to work.

 

I wouldn't say Windows in not reliable for normal use. As Greg said without putting hacked/pirated games on it etc it's fine. Still if I mess with it as usual, experiment, download various stuff, install, uninstall, some goes to registry, some installs its own drivers, etc, plus fragmentation, all in the end makes your system run a bit slower, in a bit weird way - lets say, not as pristine as it was. Format, apply image, and everything is fine again, simply because its clean

 

But ideally, your system wouldn't require that. If a program is uninstalled, it should be uninstalled, and take up zero resources from then on.

 

Precisely - That's the part that's always bothered me about Windows. The Operating System's job (well, one of them) is to keep track of what software is installed. When you want to uninstall something, it should completely and totally remove all traces of that program. Linux does that. Mac does that. HP-UX does that. AIX does that. *BSD does that. IRIX does that. Solaris does that. Windows does not. Why? Why should I have to manually remove files and folders, manually remove cruft from the registry, and even after all that, still worry about some problematic files that a poorly written program left behind? Why? That problem has existed since the MS-DOS days. Microsoft has had years (decades, actually) to figure it out but they've totally ignored the issue. The installer/uninstaller should be part of the Windows OS - not part of the 3rd party software package you're loading. It's one of Windows' biggest shortcomings IMO.