how can i get games to install from a physical cd

[andreasaspenberg]

whenever i try to install something from a cd i get an error message. virtual device driver format in the registry is invalid. i dont use any virtual devices so i dont understand what the problem is. please help me out.

 

[Dr Super Good]

This may or may not help. I cannot find any mention of that error with modern games, only old 16 bit programs.

It could also possibly be caused by something corrupting your registry. Common causes are "registry cleaner" programs that "optimize registry" when in fact they do not improve the performance of anything and are prone to deleting important registry keys due to their ignorant nature of operation.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

virtualdevicedrivers had been completely removed from the registry so i had to create it myself. dark colony was installable after i created those missing things but i still dont understand why those values vanished in the first place.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The most common reason is the use of software that promises to "optimize the registry". It often sprouts garbage about how inefficient your registry is and then deletes keys that it thinks are unimportant, do nothing or will be replaced by the using program if necessary.

A less common cause is collateral damage caused by an uninstaller. It might remove registry folders that it created or used although they are shared between many other programs that are still installed. One can sort of view it as an uninstaller bug as it removes stuff it should not. When developing programs for Windows it is often a good idea to create registry entries that you know you will be the only user of and only read registries that you want shared.

The registry folder may not have existed in the first place. Something needs to create entries in the registry for them to be there in the first place. Many games suffer from this problem if you copy the game data across but not the game's registry entries.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

it must have been there in order to me to have installed dungeon keeper 2 in the past. i dont install optimizers because i know that they cost money to use fully. could an installer accindentially have removed it.

 

[Zakamutt]

Well, there are free registry cleaners, I believe CCleaner is the one with the best reputation but don't quote me on that - but they should be used with care and skill, and generally won't really help much; especially now that the registry isn't stored as a linked list any more (what the fuck was MS thinking? Or am I wrong? -- I think DSG said that.).

I wonder if the problems would have mattered if he'd used Daemon Tools, though I guess it doesn't matter now.

 

[Dr Super Good]

(what the fuck was MS thinking? Or am I wrong? -- I think DSG said that.).

It is called computers back in the 1990s. Nowadays registry size has no performance impact.