E
eboulanger
I had a bad experience yesterday. I uninstalled SimCity Societies (a
legitimate copy of the game) from my Vista Ultimate (also a legitimate
version, for which I was dumb enough to pay full price instead of paying the
upgrade). The uninstall went well without problems. Then I decided to
reboot.
When I try to log on, I received a dark blue screen saying that my Vista was
not genuine anymore and could not continue. The system went back to the
login screen. I tried rebooting, relogging, same error. Web tech support
was useless because I do not have another computer to contact them and
telephone support was ... well let's just say politely that they do not offer
any usefull help (unless I wanted to reformat and reinstall everything).
I was finally able to put Vista back into a working state. In case it
happens to you, here is what I did to correct this:
During boot, I immediately pressed F8 to bring the startup menu. I selected
"Boot with the last known working configuration". Vista booted and I was
able to log in. The system still display a message in the bottom right
corner of the screen saying that Vista is not genuine, but at least, it does
not send me back to the logon screen. I performed a Windows Update. A lot
of updates were then detected (even if I already installed them weeks ago).
I proceed with the installation and rebooted the computer. Vista came back
in its normal state and genuine again.
Being a little mentally disturbed (you have to be to pay full price for
Vista Ultimate), I decided to reinstall the game and uninstall it again.
This time, no problem occured.
I ran virus and spyware check (my computer was never infected by any virus
but you never know): nothing. I ran defragmentation application: no big
fragmentation there. No suspicious driver or application installed (all
legitimate... I told you I was a little mentally disturbed).
My only conclusion, since all installation programs must run with
"Administrator" privileges, something when wrong during uninstallation and
corrupted Windows Vista. I don't think the game itself was responsable but
more Installshield (which is not a good installer program compare to product
like NSIS ).
So keep in mind that Vista may break when uninstalling program and that the
"boot with last known working configuration" may be your best friend in these
cases.
I hope my bad experience may help somebody someday.
legitimate copy of the game) from my Vista Ultimate (also a legitimate
version, for which I was dumb enough to pay full price instead of paying the
upgrade). The uninstall went well without problems. Then I decided to
reboot.
When I try to log on, I received a dark blue screen saying that my Vista was
not genuine anymore and could not continue. The system went back to the
login screen. I tried rebooting, relogging, same error. Web tech support
was useless because I do not have another computer to contact them and
telephone support was ... well let's just say politely that they do not offer
any usefull help (unless I wanted to reformat and reinstall everything).
I was finally able to put Vista back into a working state. In case it
happens to you, here is what I did to correct this:
During boot, I immediately pressed F8 to bring the startup menu. I selected
"Boot with the last known working configuration". Vista booted and I was
able to log in. The system still display a message in the bottom right
corner of the screen saying that Vista is not genuine, but at least, it does
not send me back to the logon screen. I performed a Windows Update. A lot
of updates were then detected (even if I already installed them weeks ago).
I proceed with the installation and rebooted the computer. Vista came back
in its normal state and genuine again.
Being a little mentally disturbed (you have to be to pay full price for
Vista Ultimate), I decided to reinstall the game and uninstall it again.
This time, no problem occured.
I ran virus and spyware check (my computer was never infected by any virus
but you never know): nothing. I ran defragmentation application: no big
fragmentation there. No suspicious driver or application installed (all
legitimate... I told you I was a little mentally disturbed).
My only conclusion, since all installation programs must run with
"Administrator" privileges, something when wrong during uninstallation and
corrupted Windows Vista. I don't think the game itself was responsable but
more Installshield (which is not a good installer program compare to product
like NSIS ).
So keep in mind that Vista may break when uninstalling program and that the
"boot with last known working configuration" may be your best friend in these
cases.
I hope my bad experience may help somebody someday.