error when saving or loading MM8

[lodinsetki]

first off ill say hello, and its nice to meet those here, learning that some are trying to remake 6-8 makes me smile cause i feared something like that wouldnt happen. hope it blossoms and gets made and hope to help. but right now i'm in some need of that help. i'd love to learn coding and have wanted to years i can sometimes figure things out but i lack the details of what things are and what is what. but i can be taught.
i'm super stumped on this.

and when i start the game a message appears saying
"Might and magicR VIII: MM8.exe entry point not found
the entry procedure point _AIL_lock_mutex@0 could not be located in the dynamic link library mss32.dll" with a ok button.

clicking it it goes and does the movie sequence or ect key stop and goes to menu. clicking new game works and can make char. clicking load and it crashes. and a get statment below. and when i could get it into the the game and load when i would click the save button it'd crash and give me statment below.

when i try to save i get a error message saying
"fatal exception
invalid string passed ! in file C:\MMVIII\Code\Font.cpp at line number 458" and crashs.


hopefully someone can help me solve this. i can't find the font file or folder it talks about and the mss32.dll is where it is placed from the games install.
and idk what to do i've tried to find info about the error message with not much luck and for solutions and no good. i've uninstalled and reinstalled. even intalled Grayface's patch. seeing if it'd fix the issue. but to no avail.

if someone can shed some light i'd be thankful.
and i've never really joined furoms or bulliton board things like that. but i feel i can learn here.
blessed be

[the beavers1]

Hmmm, What is your operating system? Its weird but sometimes different operating systems cause strange errors with old games. This error sounds familiar...

[lodinsetki]

windows 7 professional. and it did play fine for a few days.

even when going to the setting to change the windows compatibility it stilll has the issues even all the way back to the 95.
idk where to look to try solving this. i thought it was cause i installed the new avg. cause that was really the only thing i installed as of late cause i somehow got some dns unlocker ad mal. but got rid off that then the game stopped, didn't know if connected but only event that was close to it first starting to give the error message. so didnt know if data of the game got lost in the removal of the mal data so did a unistall reinstall but still had the error pop up.
don't know id this helps but just thinking of events as to when the game started to crash.

[the beavers1]

Does any other program do this? Also have you tried installing Microsoft credentials? also did you make sure to remove avg completely? It is true that sometimes the anti-virus interferes with the game. I keep researching this issue but haven't found anything yet. did you try compatability

[lodinsetki]

at first my epsxe program faluted after i uninstalled and idk how to fully check if it's uninstalled. in control panel it says so. unless there are other ways to make sure. but i installed the newer versoin of epsxe and that worked again. so can't say to much on that. but also
haven't got to check all the rest yet been allow having issues with 'return to krondor' so may be little more faulty now aswell. and where do i install the microsoft credentials? and what would that do?? i use to like avg around 08 but then it seemed to go downhill some. and haven't found a good replace yet.
i tried changing the compatability setting threw each window version all the way back to 95. each wouldn't allow me to save and in some not load. i would have the title screen in all and could create char and begin. but not save ability.

[GreatEmerald]

Save problems always sound like the result of the fact that MM games were made pre-Vista and don't use the new security model, which makes it so that Windows disagrees with it on grounds of security.
Some things to try would be running it as an administrator, temporarily disabling UAC (don't keep it disabled at all times, it's an important security feature) and copying and running the game from your user's home directory instead of Program Files.

(Alternatively, just install Linux and run it on Wine! )

[lodinsetki]

[quote=(Alternatively, just install Linux and run it on Wine! )[/quote]
i would love to install linux. but idk how to make multi partitions for that nor process. and where and what is UAC?
and that would make sense about it but i take it even tho this isn't vista it's 7 pro it still has the security false read in it's eyes then i take it.

and by copying to the home dictinary you mean copy the whole thing from program file and copying it to my c: drive directly?

also to all sorry if my wording and speech seems jumbled at times

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, installing Linux is fairly complicated the first few times, until you get the hang of it, but it's funny that it can run old Windows games better than Windows itself.

UAC is a discretionary access control system that Microsoft implemented from Vista and up (7, 8, 8.1, 10 all have it). What DACs do is define which users can do what in what folders. Before Vista, anyone could do anything anywhere (which is a joy for viruses). Starting from Vista, programs can no longer write into certain folders, including \Windows\ and \Program Files\; all such files are supposed to be user-specific and go to some subfolder of \Users\YourUserName\. That's pretty nice for security, but old programs (all classic MM games) have no clue about that and attempt to write into \Program Files\, to which Windows says no.

That's where my tips come from. By temporarily disabling UAC (in Control Panel, User Account Control, slide the slider to disable it), you can test whether disabling the security feature allows the game to save in the place it expects to be able to save in. Alternatively, by copying the whole folder to \Users\YourUserName\ (or Documents inside it, or anything else as long as it's somewhere inside that folder hierarchy), the system will not have an objection to the game writing save files into its own folder, because it's not a system folder any more. Yet alternatively, running the game as an administrator might allow the game to save the files into Program Files and ignore UAC (but I'm not entirely certain if that is indeed the case).

Option 2 (copying the folder to Documents or such) is probably the best from the security point of view, but it might have issues in that the registry may still point to the old place in Program Files. Which is fixable too, but quite inconvenient; in fact, it might be best to uninstall the game and then install it into Documents directly!

[lodinsetki]

ok. the UAC didn't ork tried that before hand but just not good with abbrivations. but that all makes sense. and if your willing to explain how i could install linux that'd be amazing. you seem really good on explaining these things for others to understand emerald. and the putting into the files into the yourusername path i'll try and see how it goes.
and i can say no to the admin permission for running the game had setting for all games to be ran as such.
and if these dont work i'll try the restall in documents.
ty emerald and beavers

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, it might be a different problem that you're encountering, then. Reinstallation by itself may very well solve it.

[the beavers1]

Yeah Sorry that I could not be of much help, I thought it could be the installation location, except I remember running it fine on win 7, I can't remember if I had it in the program files or not, sorry I could not help =/

[lodinsetki]

... i tried the unintall before.. but just did a uninstall and reinstall. (left save files)
and installed directly to C: and i got a new message now saying this below. and also the escape button doesn't skip the 3do intro and when the 3do is normally gonna change is when it crashs now. desn't go no farther.

"direct draw error
DDERR_INVALIDPARAMS in file C:\MMVIII\Code\Screen16.cpp at line number :2880"

so now really confused. cause i tried installling a few times and didn't get that. i'm assuming this one is cause i installed directly into C: cause it's a some direct x error i'm taking it as. by idky

[the beavers1]

try installing into your documents, some things dont work if you install into C:\ directly. also is your direct x up to date?

[lodinsetki]

just tried reinstalling in the document folder and still the new DDERRR message shows. and it's dirext x ten i belive. that i am using.

[the beavers1]

strange... not sure what the problem could be

[GreatEmerald]

Maybe it's because your DirectX version is too new? Try installing the DX9 files: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... px?id=8109

[lodinsetki]

the direct x 9 install helpped. but nly so that it'd go back to the tittle screen. and it brings up the first code error again.. i've got the security thingsset to off when i try it. so i can't thin of what cause installing doesn't work and that should. i had a simalr issue with 7 when i was younger but i don't recall how i got that fixed someone else did

[Baronus]

What about eliminate these files from game folder?
DDRAW.DLL DINPUT.DLL VERSION.DLL VINMM.DLL comdlg32.dll drvmgt.dll
In Windows XP only if you eliminate it game start.
Tray it. First out ddraw and drvmgt.

[lodinsetki]

deleted ddraw, dinput. the others where not there.
triyed just the ddraw first. still get the first error.
then did the input one and think it took out the copyright part on the title screen but other than that not much change. instead of it just crashing and minimizing and when i re open it tells me the error.
this time it just poped up the error. which was nice.. considering lol. but no version vinmm comdlg32 or drvmgt was even in the folder.

ty and the result was interesing. and so far i thank all three of you in even helping me attempt to figure this out.

[Baronus]

Better back dinput. Maybe vinmm and comdlg32 are necessery and that is problem? :-) Probably its dll problem.
Another question... Are you using Grayface patch for what language version? Maybe this patch in another language help you? There is complet dll files. There are 3 versions rus. eng. other. Tray all.
Font files are in data lod files named english, icon etc. MMarchive or MM8leveleditor help look inside.
Maybe exe file is different version than dll files? Eg. rus and eng?