Hi everyone, so I have a rahter simple question. Does anyone of you have the new windows operationg system vista and BG2 installed? Does it work well? Does vista cause any other troubles with Mods and so on? Thanks much, I'm about to get a new computer and wanted to run through BG2 with some cool mods.

I can't speak for the finished product, but BG2 worked with the beta-versions as long as you disabled the OpenGL effects. If not you got some graphics bugs. That was supposed to be fixed though.

I'm running Vista and have both BG and BG2 installed. I'm currently running a BGtutu v4 mod plus Gray Clan, Herbs and Potions, and Tweak pack. So, far, everything runs great!

I had the same question, and no one was fully certain of their answers, but I haven't seen any problems yet.

Good luck! Happy gaming!

i heard somewhere someone tried to play BG2 with vista and they couldnt get it to work.

but i didnt ask any follow up questions.

If anything, they needed to install the latest patch. The patch designed for XP. People encountered a problem where the game would run, but you could not speak to anyone. They all gave the "character is busy" message in the text window.

pretty sure they had the latest patch, ill ask next time i see them.

I'm running Vista and the game works just fine but I can't take screenshots during the game (it's possible with other games, I did it with Heroes of Might and magic V but I can't do it with BG2).
Does anyone has a clue to what may be causing this problem?

I have ToB working fine in Vista, except that it crashes when I try to create a multiplayer game (still working on that problem). It was also necessary for me to disable 3D Acceleration otherwise the game was choppy, but this could be unique to my system. Now it runs almost flawlessly, as long as I am content with a single-player game. I also have a few minor mods and tweaks installed with no problems.

Take note: Vista will likely create a "hidden" list of files within your main SoA folder, some of which you might need to access. To view these files click on "Compatibility Files" on the toolbar above the SoA folder.

To enable the console you must make the necessary changes to the hidden baldur.ini file rather than the other one. Your saved games are also hidden.

Thanks a lot Shadow Mage, I can now see my screenshots!!!! :)

Actually, the multiplayer issue is easy to solve. Vista is not that patient with fullscreen applications, and considers it crashed pretty swiftly. However, if you switch to windowed mode (alt-enter) you can create the multiplayer game. After the game has started, just alt-enter again and play as you used to.

Hey All,

I've been lurking around a bit, but I have to reply to this thread.

I'm using Vista but I'm having a lot of problems. This is a warning for people thinking about switching, but also a question, in the hope that someone can help me.

The problem is that I can't delete .exe files anymore, it has occured a few weeks ago and I haven't found a solution yet.

Everytime I try to move, overwrite or delete a .exe it says the program is in use. Even when it's clearly not.

This in itself is a huge problem, but to stay on the BG topic, I can't update Weidu anymore (this is because it overwrites the old .exe), meaning I can't play any mods.

So, if anyone has a solution, I'd gladly hear it, cause I'm about to throw my pc out the window. Which would be a shame cause I like my window...

I don't use vista, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was a permissions issue. Are you logged on as administrator or have administrator privileges? Also what error messages are you getting? Probably less likely, but are files in question set to read only?

Boy at a busstop: Have you tried simply restarting the computer? It might be due to an improper shutdown of bg. With restarting, I really mean go to that little arrow next to the lock button in your start menu and choose restart. Just clicking the "shutdown" button and then starting your comp again won't be much help since if you didn't change the settings, that button will just put your comp in sleep mode, hence not terminating all remaining running programs. I do have some other ideas you can try, but first try this. And like Stu said, if this doesn't help, please quote the exact error message here.

[ August 24, 2007, 13:32: Message edited by: Meatdog ]

Check if you have the administrative rights (or whatever they are called) I'm using vista and although I had a few headaches I can run all my games (exept Arcanum go figure) and I even have my modded BG2 (although I couldn't salvage my saves).
Vista is a bit on the paranoid side always asking for your permission every time you move a file.
If you have several hard drive maybe you could instal the game on your second drive (the one without system files) I found out that vista wasn't as touchy about cutting and pasting on my other drive. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the tips, but they didn't work.

Rebooting was the first thing I did, no dice though.

I have administrative rights and Vista allows me to throw the files away, but I always get an error saying the program is in use.

I only have an extra back up partition installed by the pc company, so I'm not touching that. Maybe I should partition my drive once I get this problem fixed, other people told me as well Vista isn't as iffy if you partition...

Arcanum installs just fine on my machine. Well except for the odd bug or crash, but hey, it's arcanum, right? ;)

Second option, open the task manager (through rightclicking program bar or ctrl-alt-del) and go to the second tab, with processes. Look if there is one that even remotely looks like bg. If there is, terminate it.

Third option: uninstall bg, reboot vista and then reinstall bg. I think vista uses some kind of caching to speed up the launching of programs you use often, it might be that that is causing issues. I don't know if this solution helps with that, but it's worth the shot. However, make sure that after the uninstall, there is nothing left, by deleting the installation directory of bg (after backing up save games and other stuff you'd like to transfer).

Question: do you use a flash drive to speed things up? Might be a good idea to temporarily not use it and see if it helps.

EDIT: Fourth option: boot in safe mode (during bootup press F8 to get to a menu where you can choose boot in safe mode) and try to delete it there.

Fifth option: Try what they suggest here (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=177004). However, don't try to terminate explorer.exe like the originator of that thread. Explorer runs in the same thread as windows, or at least it did till win xp. Terminating it comes down to almost terminating windows itself.

EDIT2: Little thought that passed my mind: It might be due to a bug in the indexing windows does. Try disabling the indexing and see if it helps.

[ August 24, 2007, 13:49: Message edited by: Meatdog ]