[Doolittle81]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

That's the most bulletproof a method I've come across. Mind if I steal it for people I help with SH4 weirdness syndrome? I'll quote and credit you.

One minor quibble. All patches contain the previous patches. So if you were going to patch 1.5, you could skip the 1.4 step. No consequences if you don't, you just save some time.

Would you explain why the reboots are important? I'm sure some have gone through the process without rebooting and got away with it. So it would be a great idea to tell why that makes the process a lot more bulletproof. Lots more people would do it right if they knew why.

I'm no computer expert...but I've been willing to take some risks and methodically follow the guidance and advice of others who have a greater degree of expertise and PC knowledge. I learned the basics of my proposed "installation repair" from comments by another Subsim (or UBI) forum member, but along the way had gotten some Completely Wrong (potentially 'damaging') advice as well. Methodically applying advice step-by-step and employing some trial-and-error approaches, I found out what works for me. As I noted in my first post in this thread, I have had many days...many...of very worrisome frustrations wondering if I would ever get a particular application/program running again (SH4, IL2 specifically)...or if I had done major damage to my PC or Operating System, etc..

With that in mind, the process I described does work and, always with the caveat/caution that one must personally acknowledge/accept the risk of entering the registry, I have no objections to your providing my suggested process to anyone experiencing "re-installation weirdness". A true expert might see it and come along with a more expert/refined process.

You are correct that the 1.5 patch(Add-on) can be applied directly to the DVD SH4 1.0 version, without first upgrading 1.0 to 1.4. I have actually done it both ways...In fact, subsequent to my earlier post I once again had to follow the re-installation path and used the direct 1.5 over 1.0 patch path and it worked fine for me this time....so that would be the preferred/simpler process. [However, some folks may want to install and retain the SH4 1.4 version (copying it to another location) and then patch one version from 1.4 to 1.5].

As for the repetitive re-booting, that has been recommended to me by many others as a step to always follow when patching: Patch, re-Boot, then execute the Application/Game. It may not be absolutely necessary, but it can do no harm and it only takes a couple of minutes to re-boot. On at least one occasion, I had found myself with a 'failed' re-installation/patch after following my process and surmised without hard evidence that my failure to have re-booted May have been responsible.