• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

[SOLVED] Game not starting, at all

FINAL UPDATE; I can safely confirm with 100% certainty that the Windows Update KB3086255 was causing the issue. I just reinstalled the update and the problem showed up again, so this update is causing the issue. Issue solved! Of course it would be Windows again -_- Anyways, all the help was all much appreciated guys, thank you. I'll go see if I can report this issue to Microsoft, perhaps they're willing to patch/fix the issue.

IMPORTANT NOTE; The following fix has been only done and confirmed to work on the OFFICIAL STOCK game from the DISC! I can't guarantee this will work with a launcher gotten from somewhere else or a modded version, still, it's worth a shot.

So, for anyone who gets the following issue in the future;

The game PotC giving an error "Acces denied, Please login with administrator priviliges and try again" or it not starting at all when trying to run with administrator priviliges, do the following.

- Go to control panel ->System and Security -> Windows update -> History of installed updates located at the bar in the left
- See if you have update "KB3086255" The quickest way to find it is to sort the updates by name and look at the KB updates.
- Is it installed? Yes? Then proceed, if not, then there's most likely a different issue.
- Uninstall the update. Go to the same Windows Update screen then at the BOTTOM LEFT (It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look) Click "Installed updates"
- Search for the "KB3086255" update, it should be located under "Microsoft Windows" again, sort by name to make the job easier
- Select it and then at the top bar click "Delete" and then click yes when it asks for confirmation. Then wait a bit.
- Once it's deleted it prompts you to reboot, do this reboot.
- Boom, should be fixed. If it's not fixed then there's probably another issue.

I hope this discovery helped anyone who gets the same problem in the future.


Again, both Pieter and Hylie, thank you for your help.
 
Last edited:
Pieter Boelen said:
@Grey Roger, do you know how to add this one to the Wiki for future reference?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add to the Wiki, given that the Wiki is mostly about "New Horizons", i.e. the mod, and this only seems to be a problem if you try to run the stock game. ;)

Uninstalling the Windows Security Update solved the problem this time; so did replacing "ENGINE.exe with a more modern version. The reason nobody else has spotted the problem is likely that almost everyone is running one form of the mod or another, which means they'll have that newer "ENGINE.exe". We could perhaps put "ENGINE.exe" on the FTP site; it's useless to anyone who hasn't bought the game and therefore doesn't have the rest of the files to go with it, but it could solve problems like this in future.
 
Horthal said:
FINAL UPDATE; I can safely confirm with 100% certainty that the Windows Update KB3086255 was causing the issue. I just reinstalled the update and the problem showed up again, so this update is causing the issue. Issue solved! Of course it would be Windows again -_- Anyways, all the help was all much appreciated guys, thank you. I'll go see if I can report this issue to Microsoft, perhaps they're willing to patch/fix the issue.

So, for anyone who gets the following issue in the future;

The game PotC giving an error "Acces denied, Please login with administrator priviliges and try again" or it not starting at all when trying to run with administrator priviliges, do the following.

- Go to control panel ->System and Security -> Windows update -> History of installed updates located at the bar in the left
- See if you have update "KB3086255" The quickest way to find it is to sort the updates by name and look at the KB updates.
- Is it installed? Yes? Then proceed, if not, then there's most likely a different issue.
- Uninstall the update. Go to the same Windows Update screen then at the BOTTOM LEFT (It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look) Click "Installed updates"
- Search for the "KB3086255" update, it should be located under "Microsoft Windows" again, sort by name to make the job easier
- Select it and then at the top bar click "Delete" and then click yes when it asks for confirmation. Then wait a bit.
- Once it's deleted it prompts you to reboot, do this reboot.
- Boom, should be fixed. If it's not fixed then there's probably another issue.

I hope this discovery helped anyone who gets the same problem in the future.


Again, both Pieter and Hylie, thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

Yep. But Microsoft won't help, they did this intentionally.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...he-security-update-for-the-graphics-component

The problem is related to the disabling of secdrv.sys copy protection driver

SECDRV.SYS Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of older games.

https://www.howtogeek.com/230773/ho...-securom-drm-on-windows-10-8.1-8-7-and-vista/
Microsoft made headlines when it stripped support for SafeDisc and SecuROM DRM from Windows 10 Recent security updates to Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 have also removed support for these DRM schemes from older versions of Windows.
Click to expand...
 
Grey Roger said:
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add to the Wiki, given that the Wiki is mostly about "New Horizons", i.e. the mod, and this only seems to be a problem if you try to run the stock game. ;)
Click to expand...
I was thinking it could go in the FAQ section on "the game tends not to work if...".

ChezJfrey said:
Yep. But Microsoft won't help, they did this intentionally.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...he-security-update-for-the-graphics-component

The problem is related to the disabling of secdrv.sys copy protection driver
Click to expand...
Ah, that does explain a whole lot!
This problem indeed sounded like the Windows 10 issue; I had no idea that problem had been extended to Windows 7 by now.
Thanks for the additional details. :cheers
 
I have some older games but they still seem to work. Whew. This is another reason to only buy from GOG.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
I was thinking it could go in the FAQ section on "the game tends not to work if...".
Click to expand...
OK, so it should go into the FAQ, not into the Wiki. ;)

So, if I understand correctly:

The stock version of PoTC will not play under Windows 10, or under Windows 7 or 8 which have the "KB3086255" security update. This is because the SafeDisc copy protection system is a security risk, so Microsoft disabled it.

The Build Mod includes a version of "ENGINE.exe" which does not use SafeDisc. So, barring other issues, it should work on Windows 10 or on Windows 7 / 8 with the security update.

If you want to play the stock game, you can either uninstall the security update (and risk whatever security breach it was supposed to fix); forget the stock game, play a version of the Build Mod; or put the Build Mod's version of "ENGINE.exe" into an otherwise stock installation.

@Pieter Boelen: do you want me to put the NH version of "ENGINE.exe" onto the FTP site?
 
I don't know - does the Build 12 one work? Where is Build 12 available to download?

I do have Build 13, if that's any better than Build 14 for this purpose.
 
I've now added a bit to the FAQ line which deals with the game not running on Windows 10. It now says "Windows 7, 8 or 10". Rather than go into detail in the FAQ itself, I did what some others have done for other cases - added a link back to this thread.

If someone, possibly @Horthal, wants to try installing the stock game and then copy in that version of ENGINE.exe, and if it then works, I'll include a direct link to it in the FAQ.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top