[RESOLVED] "Prepar3D was unable to load some program files and will now exit. Please reinstall Prepar3d to restore or repair the program installation."

[Bananimal]

Interesting issue here. A little background.



Win 7 x64 Ultimate, water cooled Intel i7 2600K @ 4.6Ghz stable as a rock. 16GB DDR5 RAM, Installing P3D on a Raid 0 set of SSDs, GTX Titan Video. Hardware is not the issue. I built this beast and it runs well.



I had some issues with the program data folder in my previous install of Win 7. I noticed this while digging around for the Scenery.cfg folder. Apparently, within the program data folder, there was a symbolically linked "Application Data" folder that had another "Application Data" symbolic link folder nested within it. And from there, there were another 25 of them or so before I finally got to a real folder. Win 7 definitely dorked. I traced this back to my taking ownership of HDD C. There was a Lockheed folder all the way at the end of this. Not good. Maybe this is why the sim was taking forever to load a flight.



So, seeing this, and being the techie that I am, I decided to restore my PC from image. And, with my luck, all three of my images had this issue. Time to start over.



So last night, I reinstalled Win 7 x64 U clean and apply all patches. I install my hardware drivers and 4 hours later I'm able to create a backup image of the PC before proceeding. I then run the P3D installer. I think I see an error flash by with Simconnect but the install continues and the install finishes. I wasn't really paying attention as P3D installed and ran fine on this very PC first go 'round. I click the P3D shortcut and I get "Prepar3D was unable to load some program files and will now exit. Please reinstall Prepar3d to restore or repair the program installation."



I have uninstalled, re-installed, installed under different admin profiles and the results are the same. The app won't run. Kinda interesting it installed in my old Win 7 setup just fine but will not on a brand new, clean and fully patched version of Win 7 x64 U. Even after taking full ownership of the install drive and turning UAC completely off. Nothing is working here. If I had to guess, simconnect is dorked. But, it's buried in a cab file and I cannot re-install it. Even worse, it is not available for uninstall in Control Panel. Sure, I could decompress the cab file and extract the Simconnect installer, but I'll wait on a green light from LM before going down that road.



Any help would be greatly appreciated. I sent an e-mail earlier today and haven't had a response yet. E-mail support is not very effective in these situations. It wastes the customer's time if your reply does not resolve the issue. And I have a feeling, this one isn't going to be easy. I'm a PC tech of 20+ years. Either I am blind (which wouldn't be the first time) or, "Houston, we have a problem" as I'm not the only one that has had this issue.

[Bananimal]

Interesting find, the LM folder in AppData/Roaming and ProgramData does not exist after install in any profile I attempt to install the app in.

[Adam Breed]

Quote:
Quote from Bananimal on June 5, 2013, 22:20

Interesting find, the LM folder in AppData/Roaming and ProgramData does not exist after install in any profile I attempt to install the app in.



Hi Bananimal,



I doubt your issue is related to the SimConnect install, because that is just provided for backwards compatibility support. It sounds like you have hit already on the steps described in the FAQ (http://www.prepar3d.com/frequently-asked-questions/). To your question about the folders, those are not created during install, only during the first run. It does not look like you have ran successfully, so that would explain why those folders are not present.



It is likely an issue with DirectX. Make sure you manually install the newest drivers for your video card and redistributables for DirectX.



Does it start if you right-click 'Run as administrator' on the Prepar3D.exe in the install folder?



Let us know!

Adam

[Bananimal]

Downloaded a new set of installer files and the problem persists. P3D installs fine, but will not run. Now that you mention DirectX, I never did see the 9C installer come up, so you may be correct here. I'll install it and let you know. Thanks for the help.

[Bananimal]

That did it. Resolved. Interesting that your installer does not check for and recommend DirectX when installed on a clean install of Win 7 x64 Ultimate. I appreciate the help Adam. Thanks so much.

[Adam Breed]

Quote:
Quote from Bananimal on June 6, 2013, 10:33

That did it. Resolved. Interesting that your installer does not check for and recommend DirectX when installed on a clean install of Win 7 x64 Ultimate. I appreciate the help Adam. Thanks so much.



It does, but if a version is installed or modified, we always do not always overwrite it depending on various circumstances. Glad that fixed up your issue!



Have a great one,

Adam

[agarti]

Before I did an OS reinstall W 7 64 bit I installed and activated P3D, now gives me an error, says he does not see the installed files and prompts you to install or uninstall and repeats, or repair the already completed; but not resolved, although as stated, I do destination folder in C /, and not in c / Program files / (86).



Daniel thanks

[Saul]

Sorry to hear you're having trouble here is a guide to installing that may be of assistance.



Firstly, make sure your system UAC "User Access Control" is set to Never notify



Secondly, make sure you run the installer with administrator rights and install with setup.exe (NOT the Prepar3D.exe) as it is the setup.exe that contains the pre-required files.



Thirdly, Make sure that the shortcut used to start Prepar3D has the "Run this program as administrator" box tick on the compatibility TAB within the shortcut properties.



And Finally don't do any over-clocking as this is known to upset Prepar3D.



If you have tried all that without finding a solution please ask for further help.



Regards



Saul