Has SH3 ever just "stopped working" for you? (crit

[vois2]

For months I have been so happy with my SH3 installation ... never a whisper of a problem, until today.

I use the 'downloadable' version of SH3, and for a couple of months have been running an error-free and remarkably smooth SH3 + v1.4b patch + RuB 1.42 . (no other mods of any sort).

This is on a brand new P4 3.0 with almost nothing but SH3 and Windows XP installed. 1.0 Gb RAM, and 128 MB PCIx graphics card. And the machine is not even connected to the Internet!!

Suddenly today it just would not load up any career save. The game started OK, but during the process of loading my career save it goes "clunk" just as the screen starts its 'Initializing..." notification. Gives me a "Critical error with SH3" Windows notification, and SH3 shuts down.

There was nothing that I did last night when exiting/playing the game that I haven't done for months previously.

I also tried loading previous career save games -- even one in the previous whole patrol! - but the error was persistent.

I tried several things, eventually copying over the entire C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\SilentHunterIII with a 'virgin' copy I kept elsewhere on my hard drive. Patched it to 1.4b, and still the error persisted.

Eventually after some hours of diagnosis and trial and error, I have decided to just Uninstall SH3 altogether, remove all remnants as best I know how, and re-Install SH3 v1.0. I'm going to stop at the v1.4b patch for a couple of days to try out MP while I await the release of the next version of RuB.

Anyone have any idea what could cause this error to suddenly occur and persist? Thanks in advance.