An Alt-Tabbing practised by 1.09

[binTravkin]

Y'all know how it looks when you alt-tab a game, so my game alt-tabs itself in the process popping up another program window (which has the same icon as EU2) which immediately disappears.

I have managed to read first letters of the name of that window/program and it starts with 'Activ..'.

The result is that I play for 5 minutes, then game goes to desktop, then I alt-tab back, 10 minutes pass (the time is random ranging from a few minutes to half an hour) and again the game alt-tabs, I tab back and resume.

This makes handsoff mode totally impossible not even talking about plain annoyance of the fact.

I am running 1.09, installation order was:
EU2 v.1.00 (or 1.01)
patch 1.09

I also recenly installed AGCEEP + MyMAP but the error seems independent on that - I had it before, I have it now.

Explanations/Instructions?

 

[Castellon]

Are you sure you got that error BEFORE you installed ANY mods or made any edits.

Also what publisher version do you have, their logo will be on the CD.

 

[binTravkin]

Nono, I got the error AFTER installing 1.09 and it hasn't changed since I installed AGCEEP+MyMAP.

 

[Castellon]

And the publisher question?

 

[binTravkin]

Snowball.ru (it's the russian/english version)

 

[Castellon]

Ah! it has special Copy protection put in by them.

Are you running the Russian version of Windows?

 

[binTravkin]

Well, Castellon, if it had protection I would be aware of it 4 years from now as it's the time (if not earlier) when I purchased it.
It worked fine up to patch 1.08 inclusive (played EU2 last summer for the last time).
Now I really have a new Windows, but the version is not changed it was english XP Pro and it is the same now, the only thing that changed is patch 1.09.

 

[Castellon]

Sorry the Snowball version is only authorized for use on the Russian version of windows. It is sold at a special price, which is why it includes certian safe gaurds in it.
Nothing to do with Paradox as Paradox does not put them in. You would need to talk with Snowball.

 

[binTravkin]

Then tell me why this 'protection' only started working with patch 1.09 and why this protection didn't show up in my English version of Windows and why this protection lets me install and play the game except misteriously tabbing me to desktop time by time?

It does not sound as protection and logically thinking it only has anything to do with patch 1.09 as this is first time I encounter this problem, right after patching.

 

[Castellon]

Well these patches are not really meant for the snowball version, they have their own patches but I think they stoped putting them out some time ago.

 

[unmerged(37432)]

I've had a similar problem before, with windows popping up "ActiveX window" whenever I played any game. It was related to a very old codec that was installed by a DivX encoding package. So if you still have that error you could check for this. And I had removed all avi and mp3 from the game so it wasn't related to EU2 at all. So if you recently installed anything related to video, you may want to check what codec packages it installed.

 

[Castellon]

Thanks for the tip.