Bit of a technical hitch here! Apologies for the long post and if this has been mentioned before, I did have a look but couldn’t find anything – I doubt anyone has been as stupid as me in the past anyway!
I deleted JA in order to reinstall (long and embarrassing story as to why! :p) but instead of using the uninstall I just deleted the C:\Programfiles\Lucasarts file from the hard drive.
I know, I know - I am a dope……
Realising my idiocy I then tried to “Remove Programs” via Control Panel to rectify the issue. However, when I click on Repair/Remove, although the Uninstaller loads and it asks as usual if I want to remove all folders, it then doesn’t go on to ask whether I want to keep my save games files, it just says that it has performed maintenance on the program and closes.
In other words I cannot delete the remnants of JA via the Uninstall. I have tried it from the Launch Menu, CD Setup file and Control Panel and it makes no difference.
To make things worse, when I try to install the game again, the Launch Menu comes up with the play options – Single/Multiplayer etc and not the Install option that it normally does when you do not have it on our system, as I essentially do not. If I try to play Single or Multiplayer it will not load saying it is missing files – they obviously went with the Lucasarts folder.
As a result I think there must be some files still on my hard drive that are telling the CD that I already have it installed but I have no idea where they are as I thought everything to do with the game was in the Lucasarts folder I deleted.
I thought of two options; find the files that are telling my JA CD that I already have it installed and delete them or try to manually install the game from the CDs, if not to play the game then at least to try to give the Uninstaller something to delete if you know what I mean.
With regard to the first, I searched big time and found nothing, I even defragged my hard drive in vain last night! I was hoping one of you guys might know what to look for??
As for the second, I tried copying the Gamedata file on Disc 1 to a c:\Programfiles\Lucasarts\Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy file that I created but the Uninstall will still only perform maintenance and will not delete.
I plan on doing the same manual installation of all files from both discs to the manually created files on my hard drive tonight when I get back from work I am hoping that either this “full installation” will give the Uninstaller something to delete and that it will clear out any files my CD is recognising thus leaving me free to reinstall or that I will be able to play the game freely from this but obviously still not be able to delete it!
Phew, what a story. I was hoping to pick all your brains to see if there is anything I have missed that might correct my situation or if any of you had done something similarly foolish and could tell me what they did to set things right and help me swing my saber again!?
:(
Ps Almost forgot, the CD is definitely not the problme as I tested it on another Pc last night and it worked perfectly!
when you install programs in windows, normally they create entries in the 'registery'. when you uninstall them, it removes those entreis from the registry.
basically, its a big complicated list of things that are installed on your computer and a bunch of settings, all messed up in typical microsoft fashon.
what you did, was delete the files for the game, but no the registry entries (which the uninstaller would have done) so windows still thinks its installed, even tho the files arnt there.
best thing to do, i think, is to navitage CD1 until you find a program called setup.exe and run that. this will launch the install manually (i.e. not thru the autorun menu that pops up when you pop in a JA disc) and then select wherever you want to install it to. the corrisponding registry settnigs for JA will get overwritten with this new install and every thing should be back to normal.
the thing you mentioned about copying files over from your HDD work find in this instance as far as i know, because the files on the JA discs are all the same as when they get installed. some games however, unpack different things, rename files, etc. so starting the setup.exe is always the best option imho.
All sorted, thank you so much for your help, I owe you one!!
:)