Displacer on 18/12/2008 at 23:08
So i got a new rig recently, windows xp pro with sp3. I went to reinstall System Shock 2 and ran into problems immediately. The installer ran for a few seconds then just dropped to the desktop. I tried every fix/workaround known to man to no avail. Not to be beaten by a mere installer I decided to try and see what the problem was myself. I disassembled setup.exe and found its a 16 bit installer. No problem I thought, I'll just load up the 16 bit debugger (turbo debug) and single step through it until I find out where the problem is located.
I install turbo debugger, and lo and behold it no longer works either. I do some research and find that openwatcom has a 16 bit debugger, so I download it and install. I fire up the debugger and load setup.exe and all is going well.
Now the weird part. I want to single step through the program, but mistakenly hit the run key and the installer loaded up and ran without a hitch! The game installed fine, and patched without any problems at all. Only thing I can figure is the debugger uses its own 16 bit emulation to run under 32 bit windows.
At any rate people who are having problems with install should try this route. You don't need to be a coder to use it, just load and run it through the debugger and it should work without any problems.
