Game will not start

[tenryu]

I am very frustrated.

EoS refuses to start on my computer. I have tried everything I can think of to get it working, reinstalling, running as admin, installing as admin, shutting off Norton Av, running in xp compatability mode, updating, turning off dep.

Nothing works.

Running the exe results in a momentary blink of the desk top icon and then nothing.

any ideas on solutions would be apprieciated.

Vista ultimate 64 bit OS

[Moon]

Looking at what you wrote, DEP shouldn't be the problem, as that normally throws an error popup, and newer CPUs have a much better and less buggy implementation of it.

But Norton is nasty, especially if you have that Internet Security package, and "shutting it off" may not be as easy as you think. The only way I got it to actually stop messing with my PC is to uninstall it, and even that proves difficult.

You do know about our www.battlefront.com/helpdesk? Tjere is a Knowledgebase and a way to submit a support ticket. You should do that.

Also, check if you have the file runservice.exe in your C:\Windows folder. If it's not there, then it was blocked during the installation, and the usual suspects are "User Access Control", "Anti-virus", DEP, in this order.

[tenryu]

Groannn. Thx for reply Moon.

Yes- I have Norton IS

:?

[tswca]

Also, check if you have the file runservice.exe in your C:\Windows folder. If it's not there, then it was blocked during the installation, and the usual suspects are "User Access Control", "Anti-virus", DEP, in this order.

OK, so let's assume "runservice.exe" ISN'T there to be exempted from DEP. This has happened to me on three different machines now (Win XP and 7) and there was never any notice that anti-virus or anything else had blocked its installation. One of the machines didn't even have any anti-virus installed yet...

Do you have any suggestion how to get this installed in the right place? Is there a separate installer or installer option to force-install it?

[Brit]

OK, so let's assume "runservice.exe" ISN'T there to be exempted from DEP. This has happened to me on three different machines now (Win XP and 7) and there was never any notice that anti-virus or anything else had blocked its installation. One of the machines didn't even have any anti-virus installed yet...

Do you have any suggestion how to get this installed in the right place? Is there a separate installer or installer option to force-install it?

I've sent an email to Battlefront about the issue. They should respond soon. Hope we can get this issue cleared up for you.

[Kelly's Heros]

Why is this an issue? Is the game copy protection causing this problem? It sounds like the elicensing software and not the game.

[tswca]

I've sent an email to Battlefront about the issue. They should respond soon. Hope we can get this issue cleared up for you.

Thanks for the help!

[tswca]

Why is this an issue? Is the game copy protection causing this problem? It sounds like the elicensing software and not the game.

I agree, that's what it looks like. But it's all part of the same installer and only few others seem to experience this issue. Something odd is going on here.

[Moon]

OK, so let's assume "runservice.exe" ISN'T there to be exempted from DEP. This has happened to me on three different machines now (Win XP and 7) and there was never any notice that anti-virus or anything else had blocked its installation. One of the machines didn't even have any anti-virus installed yet...

Do you have any suggestion how to get this installed in the right place? Is there a separate installer or installer option to force-install it?

The problematic behavior you're seeing is not our game or our code, but your PC. It's bad programming really - when a security feature is blocking something, I would expect it to tell me, the user, about it. But DEP, UAC and many anti-virus programs don't, and don't even document well what they actually do.

If you are having the same problem on an XP machine, then that rules out UAC (because XP does not have it). UAC can also be ruled out by simply shutting it off (which is my default setting on Vista anyway, to be honest, I find it to be just annoying and nothing else).

This leaves DEP or AV. If you have a PC without AV, then it can only be DEP. DEP is a CPU function on your motherboard. Some (early) motherboards are very buggy. You may do the right settings twice and nothing will change, then you do the exact same thing a third time and suddenly it works...

If you're missing the runservice.exe file from the Windows folder, then one workaround is to manually copy the file into that folder. Submit a support ticket at the www.battlefront.com/helpdesk and we can send you that file.

Martin

[Moon]

Why is this an issue? Is the game copy protection causing this problem? It sounds like the elicensing software and not the game.

In the case of EOS, that's correct. For some other games (such as Theatre of War), it's actually the game, also, requiring full admin rights.

Here is what happens: eLicense is encrypting (for obvious reasons) the game, so it cannot be hacked. This encryption may cause UAC, AV or DEP to raise a red flag, depending on how they are configured. Many people have no idea about the configuration of their security (no surprise, since the documentation often is terrible, at least in the case of DEP and UAC, and often also for many Anti-virus programs), and if it is too high, it may block the game from running, and e.g. prevent that runservice.exe file from being written into your Windows directory (the Windows directory often has special protection "built-into" your Windows OS).

You only really need full admin rights for the installation and the first launch. Once it "passes", your PC understands that nothing harmful is going on. However, if there are changes to your security settings (e.g. AV auto-updates or something like that, often you're not even aware of them), it may re-trigger it, so it's a good idea to leave the game on "Run as admin" permanently.

Some AV programs actually mirror what UAC and DEP do (who knows why? Perhaps so they can boast about it on their feature pages?), so even if you do things right there, they may step in and mess up things once again.

Why is this a problem for some and not for others? Obvious: once you get the settings right, it won't be a problem anymore. And the settings you need do not make your PC any less protected, either. But some people have their PC "locked down" unnecessarily tight without even being aware of it.

BTW, this problem is not specific to eLicense at all. Have you ever had a seemingly random error like "0xc0000005" pop up? The address may be different, too, from time to tim. Well, that's usually the exact same reason (DEP, UAC or your AV) blocking things without your knowledge. Several of my Adobe programs have that problem.

Windows 7 seems to be a bit smarter about this and seems to have somewhat improved error messages at least. I have seen references to DEP for the first time, which is a good thing, because it tells you where the problem is coming from.

Getting this right can be frustrating. If you are one of the few people affected by this, we work with you to help you find the right settings at www.battlefront.com/helpdesk. So far, we only had to refund money to a customer once or twice because even we couldn't find a solution.

[Kelly's Heros]

Moon, thanks for that great explanation. Very helpful and I would suggest that you sticky this response at the top of the forum to help minimize the pain some folks are having. You have obviously studied this issue and we need to know about it as some of us will forget over time. Please put it at the top of the forum or on a FAQ.

I'm going to research DEP, I've never heard of it and now that I'm running win 7 I guess I need to know more about it.

Thanks again for the info.

[Moon]

Actually the info is already in our Knowledgebase at www.battlefront.com/helpdesk.

DEP is not anything new with Windows 7. It was actually introduced years ago (very buggy at first, much better with newer PCs it seems, as we're seeing it crop up less and less often). It's a CPU function, i.e. hardware function on your motherboard, regardless of which (Windows) operating system you use.

Martin

[Kelly's Heros]

Hmmm, how does hardware keep a file from being placed into the \Windows directory? Now I'm very interested if learning more.

[Kelly's Heros]

Here's some information from Microsoft on DEP. I have Win7x64 and DEP is running on my machine with Policy level 2 and EOS installed and is running fine. As you can see level 2 applies only to Windows code.

DEP is hardware logic that prevents code from running in the data address space to protect against viruses.

How to confirm that hardware DEP is working in Windows

To confirm that hardware DEP is working in Windows, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Use the Wmic command-line tool

You can use the Wmic command-line tool to examine the DEP settings. To determine whether hardware-enforced DEP is available, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_Available

If the output is "TRUE," hardware-enforced DEP is available.

To determine the current DEP support policy, follow these steps.

Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy

The value returned will be 0, 1, 2 or 3. This value corresponds to one of the DEP support policies that are described in the following table.

DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy property value Policy Level Description

2 OptIn (default configuration) Only Windows system components and services have DEP applied

3 OptOut DEP is enabled for all processes. Administrators can manually create a list of specific applications which do not have DEP applied

1 AlwaysOn DEP is enabled for all processes

0 AlwaysOff DEP is not enabled for any processes

Note To verify that Windows is running with hardware DEP enabled, examine the DataExecutionPrevention_Drivers property of the Win32_OperatingSystem class. In some system configurations, hardware DEP may be disabled by using the /nopae or /execute switches in the Boot.ini file. To examine this property, type the following command at a command prompt:

wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_Drivers

Method 2: Use the graphical user interface

To use the graphical user interface to determine whether DEP is available, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type wbemtest in the Open box, and then click OK.

In the Windows Management Instrumentation Tester dialog box, click Connect.

In the box at the top of the Connect dialog box, type root\cimv2, and then click Connect.

Click Enum Instances.

In the Class Info dialog box, type Win32_OperatingSystem in the Enter superclass name box, and then click OK.

In the Query Result dialog box, double-click the top item.

Note This item starts with "Win32_OperatingSystem.Name=Microsoft..."

In the Object editor dialog box, locate the DataExecutionPrevention_Available property in the Properties area.

Double-click DataExecutionPrevention_Available.

In the Property Editor dialog box, note the value in the Value box.

If the value is TRUE, hardware DEP is available.

Notes

To determine the mode in which DEP is running, examine the DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy property of the Win32_OperatingSystem class. The table at the end of Method 1 describes each support policy value.

To verify that hardware DEP is enabled in Windows, examine the DataExecutionPrevention_Drivers property of the Win32_OperatingSystem class. In some system configurations, hardware DEP may be disabled by using the /nopae or /execute switches in the Boot.ini file.

[Moon]

Hmmm, how does hardware keep a file from being placed into the \Windows directory?

Because...

DEP is hardware logic that prevents code from running in the data address space to protect against viruses.

...it's running in the data address space This prevents hackers from dumping the unencrypted game out of memory, which is the one way to hack just about anything.

Martin

[tswca]

The problematic behavior you're seeing is not our game or our code, but your PC. It's bad programming really - when a security feature is blocking something, I would expect it to tell me, the user, about it. But DEP, UAC and many anti-virus programs don't, and don't even document well what they actually do.

If you are having the same problem on an XP machine, then that rules out UAC (because XP does not have it). UAC can also be ruled out by simply shutting it off (which is my default setting on Vista anyway, to be honest, I find it to be just annoying and nothing else).

This leaves DEP or AV. If you have a PC without AV, then it can only be DEP. DEP is a CPU function on your motherboard. Some (early) motherboards are very buggy. You may do the right settings twice and nothing will change, then you do the exact same thing a third time and suddenly it works...

If you're missing the runservice.exe file from the Windows folder, then one workaround is to manually copy the file into that folder. Submit a support ticket at the www.battlefront.com/helpdesk and we can send you that file.

Martin

Apologize for the complete quote, but there is a lot in your post to comment on.

Agreed, software should give better logs, but that goes for the installer as much as for Windows or AV programs; it's not "my PC", though, nor am I running outdated or flaky hardware...

As you correctly concluded, the "culprit" in this case was indeed DEP. Changing the setting to "DEP for Windows and system programs only", (instead of enabling DEP for all executables) and rebooting did the trick.

This time I carefully monitored the installation and checked the installer log. I noticed that the installer actually never writes to the Windows system directory and after installation, "Runservice.exe" still does not show up there. Only after the program runs for the first time does "Runservice.exe" magically appear in the system directory, as well as additional files "mmfs.dll" and "lcmmfu.cpl" (both "Copyright © 1998-2005 ViaTech Technologies Inc."). So it's not really the installer that's not working, it's DEP (legitimately, I think) preventing the program from running after installation when it tries to do something fishy.

Seeing this, I'm not surprised the install is not working, DEP is likely working as designed by preventing execution of something that was treated as a data file before (e.g. by copying it into the Windows directory). The copyright notice also makes it pretty clear that the licensing technology pre-dates DEP (and UAC) and thus is not designed to deal correctly with modern OS security. I'm also not thrilled by it installing what is basically a fake control panel plugin and mucking about with Windows Update (got an unexplained log "AU received policy change subscription event" at install time). If I had to conclude anything about all this, the culprit is really an outdated installer and licensing software that behaves in very suspicious ways, not the OS protection mechanism.

I don't think copying only runservice.exe to the Windows directory would work; at minimum, you'd also have to copy "mmfs.dll" and "lcmmfu.cpl". They probably also make other changes to the system.

I think your comments regarding UAC and DEP are pretty misplaced. Requiring your users to disable OS safety mechanisms to install a game is just no longer an acceptable policy, IMO. UAC may be annoying, but certainly much less annoying than catching a root kit, trojan, or other malware infection and having to wipe your harddisk and reinstall everything.

Overall, I think the "problematic behavior I'm seeing" is EXACTLY in "your code", not in my PC (hardware or software). I agree, "It's bad programming really...", but not in the OS for once.

[Moon]

Thanks for your feedback. You are basing your opinion on a number of guesses and wrong assumptions.

So it's not really the installer that's not working, it's DEP (legitimately, I think) preventing the program from running after installation when it tries to do something fishy.

Exactly. DEP is at work. But there is nothing fishy going on. Data execution in itself is nothing fishy at all. The fact that some Trojans exploit this to remain undetected does not make it bad.

Since DEP is at work, don you agree that it should tell you that it does something and what it does? I have seen error messages in Windows 7 that tell you that data execution was stopped, so it means that Microsoft has noted the problem and improved it. Now you, the user, know what's going on on your PC and can act accordingly. That's a step in the right direction.

The copyright notice also makes it pretty clear that the licensing technology pre-dates DEP (and UAC) and thus is not designed to deal correctly with modern OS security.

There is no way around DEP and UAC, no matter if you develop in 2005 or 2009. DEP and UAC would not be worth much if you code get around them, would they? They're made precisely to not allow you to do that.

I don't think copying only runservice.exe to the Windows directory would work; at minimum, you'd also have to copy "mmfs.dll" and "lcmmfu.cpl". They probably also make other changes to the system.

Despite what you "think" and suspect is "probably" the case, eLicense does not change anything in your system at all, and copying runservice.exe often works.

I think your comments regarding UAC and DEP are pretty misplaced.

That's ok, they're my comments

Requiring your users to disable OS safety mechanisms to install a game is just no longer an acceptable policy, IMO.

Disabling OS safety mechanisms is not *required* at all. On a correctly configured system, neither DEP, nor UAC, nor AV changes are required. The only thing you have to have is full admin rights in order to install and launch (for the first time) the game. This has nothing to do with having to reduce your safety mechanisms. You now went from assuming things to plain incorrect fantasy.

Overall, I think the "problematic behavior I'm seeing" is EXACTLY in "your code", not in my PC (hardware or software).

What you "think" is incorrect.

Martin

[Innocence]

I'm running EoS on Vista x64 too, luckily without problems. I disabled UAC 10 seconds after installing Vista, but as you say this is not a requirement

Is there no clue to why it wont start? Nothing in any of the Windows Event Logs?

You sound like you have some knowledge of Windows - have you tried using Process Monitor to see why the EoS.exe process dies?

[Moon]

Actually he was able to run it by adjusting his DEP settings:

As you correctly concluded, the "culprit" in this case was indeed DEP. Changing the setting to "DEP for Windows and system programs only", (instead of enabling DEP for all executables) and rebooting did the trick.