JTCS won't launch anymore - what is going on?

[Jim von Krieg]

I posted the following to Matrix tech support forum;

I've had my W7 64bit rig for quite a while, with no issues apart the need to set the Desktop Composition off. I've played JTCS for years with it. I think I bought it like 2010 or something like that. Maybe even a year earlier.

Now, all of a sudden, I can't launch the exes anymore.

If I launch them by clicking the East Front / West Frong / Rising Sun exe, the result is the same: a black screen with nothing happening.

If I launch them by clicking the EF WF RS exe, it opens the game in a standard mode for playing a new scenario, which is no good if I want to play a PBEM or say a Hot Seat scenario.

If I launch the JTCS main menu, it shows the window with 'hot spots' for selecting East Front, West Front, Rising Sun, etc, it shows the Matrix logo screen when I click one but won't advance any further, resulting in the same black screen.

I had some bad sectors on my HDD where I had it installed previously, but now I have a fresh HDD with a fresh new install (no mods or anything in place, just the vanilla JTCS as it comes out of the box).

Any idea what's going on? Anyone else having this issue?

I was sure it was the old HDD as it was like a third time it was reporting bad sectors, and that is a sure sign it is about to blow off. But no, I have a fresh disk with a fresh install and it still won't launch.

All I can think of is a Windows update that screwed things up but then I would likely not have been the only one.

I have Windows Updates enabled so they update automatically. I have MS Security Essentials for virus security and keep that one up to date as well.

Did you install the patch? To run in Win7, you need the patch installed to the latest version IIRC. Also, you might want to clean up your registry (requires some type of fix-it software). If the registry is corrupted, you will get all kinds of issues.