Windows 7 problems

[sniper297]

I have Windows XP, never saw Windows 7, and I keep running across people I'm trying to help who have mysterious problems. What I would like to see from some Windows 7 guru is a sticky with the recommended way to install Trainz on a Windows 7 system. For example does it default to some kind of read-only X86 folder? If so, should the user change the install path? Is there a simple way to disable UAC to prevent it from not allowing the user to install addons and edit files?

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=75628

I'm pretty sure that one is a UAC issue, I never heard of content manager "Edit in Explorer" redirecting to the My Documents folder. From what I understand UAC "protects" the user from himself by pretending to accept his changes while actually saving them to some kind of secret virtual folder, then resets the changes to what it thinks they should be. There must be some simple way to allow clueless Windows 7 users to do all the stuff that clueless XP users have been doing for years, anyone want to do a step-by-step dummies guide?

 

[Orpheus2000]

To get rid of UAC:
Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Accounts

Choose "Change User Account Control Settings"

Set slider to "Never Notify"

Installation location
You can install Trainz whever you like.
I installed Trainz 2009 in a folder on my drive D called TS2009 A (I have a second installation in TS2009 B).

The same works for TS2010 ( I have installations in D:/TS2010 A/ and D:/TS2010 B/) and, I assume, for TS2012.

I have done this with Win 7 both 32 bit and 64 bit.

 

[lewisner]

When running W7 Pro 64 Bit I had all kinds of problems one of which was that RealPlayer wouldn't download videos. I followed the instructions on the RealPlayer site and shortly after disabled Internet Explorer. All the problems disappeared and now my PC and I have hearts flying back and forth.

 

[JCitron]

When running W7 Pro 64 Bit I had all kinds of problems one of which was that RealPlayer wouldn't download videos. I followed the instructions on the RealPlayer site and shortly after disabled Internet Explorer. All the problems disappeared and now my PC and I have hearts flying back and forth.

Is this instead of folders when copying files?

I run everything as Administrator and turned off the UAC warning so when I run programs there are no stop everything and confirm my actions with the program.

Now to be fair, this is probably not the safest thing to do, but I am an IT professional and never install anything I wouldn't do intentionally, besides the only programs I have on this particular program are TS12, Gimp, TransDem, MicroDem, Digital-Element World Builder, Bryce 7.0, and some VMs so I can run some older MS-Dos based programs like VistaPro.

John

 

[lewisner]

Yes I read about the Administrator thing a while ago and sorted that - it was a big help. One problem I had before I disabled IE was that I couldn't install or use Google Earth, Chrome or Gadgets. With IE disabled they installed perfectly.
Also my (self built) PC's Windows Experience rating had been 5.9 but it slumped to 3.7 despite my having the best and fastest components I could afford. After disabling IE it went back up to 5.9 which I have read is the highest you can get without an SSD.

 

[F2Andy]

I had TS2009 install directly to the C: drive (Win7 64bit), rather than program files (x86). Although I have it set to run as adminstrator, my son uses it occasionally without a problem just running it as a normal user (he uses surveyor, but not CM, CCP, etc. so not sure how they work).

Personally, I would not turn off UAC, as it is helping to protect your PC. It is definitely worthwhile installing and adding service packs as the administrator. After that, see how it goes. The issue will be whether you can save things, but if you are not in program files, you should be able. I think.

Not had a problem with IE. I use Firefox, but IE is still installed.

I'm pretty sure that one is a UAC issue, I never heard of content manager "Edit in Explorer" redirecting to the My Documents folder. From what I understand UAC "protects" the user from himself by pretending to accept his changes while actually saving them to some kind of secret virtual folder, then resets the changes to what it thinks they should be. There must be some simple way to allow clueless Windows 7 users to do all the stuff that clueless XP users have been doing for years, anyone want to do a step-by-step dummies guide?

Not sure if it is UAC doing that, but that is what happens with most games, yes. The game thinks it is saving to its own folder in program files, but Win7 secretly saves it in the user's folder. Trainz somehow upsets that system, which is, I think, the problem; it really does try to write to program files, and the UAC stops it, if you are not runnihg as admin.

 

[shaneturner12]

The 'redirecting to My Documents' should not be happening, even when running as administrator.

The only time I've seen that happening is when using Notepad/Wordpad, or similar.

Also, beware if disabling IE - some programs (which may include Windows Live Mail) use Internet Explorer to display some of the content, and sites that require ActiveX controls require Internet Explorer to run.

Shane

 

[schweitzerdude]

I am not a guru but here is my experience with Windows 7

I am running TS2010 on Windows 7 64-bit, my only user account is administrator since no one else uses this PC, and I have made no modifications to the default UAC settings whatsoever, and have had no problems (except having to change from the default Open GL to DirectX for reasons I don't understand and probably don't care about). I allowed TS2010 to install where it wanted to (C:/Program Files (x86)/Auran/TS2010). Nothing is getting saved to My Documents.

I also ran TC1&2 on this PC as well. Surprisingly, TS2010 runs better on this machine than TC1&2 did.

Reading this thread is now making me nervous since I plan on buying a better PC in the next few months and I hope to not have any problems on that one either.

 

[mrscsi]

I am running TS2010 on Windows 7 64-bit, my only user account is administrator since no one else uses this PC, and I have made no modifications to the default UAC settings whatsoever, and have had no problems (except having to change from the default Open GL to DirectX for reasons I don't understand and probably don't care about). I allowed TS2010 to install where it wanted to (C:/Program Files (x86)/Auran/TS2010). Nothing is getting saved to My Documents.

I also ran TC1&2 on this PC as well. Surprisingly, TS2010 runs better on this machine than TC1&2 did.

Reading this thread is now making me nervous since I plan on buying a better PC in the next few months and I hope to not have any problems on that one either.

Same here, I have installed everything from 2006 up at one time or another on Windows 7 64-bit. Never once have had an issue and never had turned off UAC. I've installed it in program files as well as in its own directory.

Where I think the problem lies is that we have people using their parents machines and they don't have administrative access. There may be also people who aren't familiar with Windows 7 who believe they have administrative access when they don't.

But I have had zero problems running any version of Trainz from 2006 up using Windows 7 64-bit. They just don't exist…

I've installed both as an administrator, and without running as an administrator. It makes no difference if you have administrative access to the machine to begin with.

 

[clam1952]

There is a difference regarding Permissions between Ultimate and Home Premium which I think is half the problem.

HP has reduced ability, for a start you can't do traditional networking with Home Pro to XP, Linux Mac etc, as the Registry entry for Lan Manager Authentication is missing, normal networking and sharing isn't available only MS's weird Homegroup which won't work with XP, Linux etc. Adding the missing Registry entry restores normal networking capability.

No network problems using Ultimate and no problem running Trainz as a user on Ultimate either, except that the laptop I have it on has Intel graphics, so is pretty useless for anything game related, just about copes with 2009 with everything on minimum setting.

 

[Deano5]

There is a heck of a difference between Win7 and the old XP.
If you have never had Windows7, then how the heck are you able to give advise to people who trust your advise about it without screwing up their machines?
I was very fluent in XP (still am as the kids have my old gaming rig from last year) but upon moving to Windows7 I find I am having to learn all over again as the differences are so vast.
If you know XP well, then stick with it for now, I wish I had. 7 is so hard to understand and has so many things running in back ground that are totally new from XP. If Trainz would run as smoothly on XP as it does on 7, I would sling 7 in the bin.

 

[RRSignal]

There is a heck of a difference between Win7 and the old XP.
If you have never had Windows7, then how the heck are you able to give advise to people who trust your advise about it without screwing up their machines?
I was very fluent in XP (still am as the kids have my old gaming rig from last year) but upon moving to Windows7 I find I am having to learn all over again as the differences are so vast.
If you know XP well, then stick with it for now, I wish I had. 7 is so hard to understand and has so many things running in back ground that are totally new from XP. If Trainz would run as smoothly on XP as it does on 7, I would sling 7 in the bin.

The thing for me is Trainz does run smooth as butta on XP. It runs fine on Win7 64 Pro for me too, but seeing as the Win7 machine is an i7, I would expect much better performance. (For a variety of reasons, I can't just use that machine for gaming, else I would have slapped XP-64 on it long ago!) But I do agree wholeheartedly with what you and Malc have said.