Using Sensi Starter and MegaPatch 4 on Windows 7 64 Bit

[Robberg]

I have installed Sensible Soccer and MegaPatch 4 on my PC which is running Windows 7 64 bit.
The game loads and plays very well but when I exit the game the SensiStarter window freezes and I have to go into Task Manager to get rid of the screen. When I start the game again, the game I have saved is gone. I had this problem previously when I was using Vista, but it was cured with an update provided by yourselves. I have SensiStarter and the standard Sensible Soccer Shortcuts to run in Compatibility Mode as Windows XP SP2 and “Run as Administrator” is checked on both shortcuts.
I hope there is a fix to this as I really enjoy the game, especially with the latest team info!

[tommyboo]

We were discussing this via email at first, but posting here may help some other people who have the same problem, so here goes...
I'll post the important bits from the emails, I hope you guys don't mind

On the face of it, it is probably what I mentioned in the previous email, if the save game was created before the megapatch was installed, usually the save games either disappear or do not work.
 
Regarding the software sides of things regarding the freeze, we need to find out whether the person sending the email is using an nVidia or ATI graphics card.
 
Especially if he has antialiasing options enabled, Sensible Soccer 2006 must be configured to run in the compatibility mode ,with  the the "Disable desktop composition" setting option selected in the compatibility tab of the exe file.
 
Hope this is a start to rule out what maybe working on and what’s not.

The game works and plays fine if I start it using the normal Sensible Soccer shortcut.
It saves the games I’ve played and doesn’t freeze when I exit the game.

will have a look mate - if the SS 2006 crashes/locks up before getting back to the Sensi Starter window correctly, then the save will be lost. We need to figure why it's locking up. I'll do some testing.

[EreWeGo]

Hi Robberg,

sorry to hear you're having some problems. The SensiStarter application was written before Windows 7 and Vista, as is written using VB6, which may be causing some problems. The workaround for Vista doesn't seem to perform the same in Windows 7, although I have managed to replicate the issue, and had it working, (sometimes).

It's not actually the SensiStarter that is freezing as such, it's waiting for the "sensiblesoccer2006.dat" file to close, which is actually the main executable for SS2006. I tried changing permissions on this file, and giving full permissions to "Users", and this actually seemd to help, but then it didn't...? I also tried changing UAC settings, permissions on the entire SS2006 folder etc. I'll do some more Windows 7 testing. For now, you could try changing permissions for the sensiblesoccer2006.dat file. Also, if when you close the game you get back to the "frozen" Sensi Starter - open task manager, but only end the process for the "sensiblesoccer2006.dat" - this way, your games should still be saved, as you should then be ablt to exit the Sensi Starter correctly...

I might investigate converting the application to Visual Studio 2008 compatible, but this could be a lot of work, so will wait and see. In a worse-case scenario, we may be stuck with the workaround, or even using the "XP Mode" in Windows 7. I'll let you know what  I find during testing...

[Robberg]

Hello, EreWeGo.
I am using an ATI Radeon 4890 graphics card. I have tried changing the compatibility settings as well as renaming sensiblesoccer.dat to sensiblesoccer.dat.exe as you suggested but it didn’t help.
However, the suggestion on the forum to only terminate the sensiblesoccer.dat file works in that the SensiStarter screen unfreezes and I can exit the screen and my saved game is not lost.
If this is what I have to do then I’m happy with that as I appreciate what you are doing for this game at your own expense and time.
Colin

[tommyboo]

Cool, glad to hear that there's a workaround for this problem and that you can at least play the game now (with saved games)
Some kind of a "proper" solution would be nice though, but I guess we can live with this. 

If you don't change the mods very often, you could copy the modded files over the originals, and then run the game "normally" using the Sensible Soccer shortcut.
I think there shouldn't be any problems then...? If you want to try that and don't know what to do, just let us know and we'll be happy to help.

[EreWeGo]

Good call Tomi - actually, it's even easier than that - if Robberg doesn't change which mods he uses much, then all he needs to do as a workaround is this:

Start the Sensi Starter application
Make your choices for pitch view, Team data etc, and start Sensible Soccer 2006
Quit the game, and if necessary, use task manager to end task the "sensiblesoccer2006.dat"
Finally, close the Sensi Starter application

From here, Robberg doesn't need to copy any files, he can just start the game using the "standard" sensiblesoccer2006.exe/shortcut. All of the choices he made will be saved and used! If he ever needs to change anything, (pitch, data etc), then he just starts the Sensi Starter again, and repeats the process above...

Not perfect, but a good workaround for Vista and Windows 7 users...

I'm still thinking of converting the application to .NET, but it might be too big a job, will investigate further anyway.

[Robberg]

Thanks for the tip. I don’t change the settings that often so I’ve done as you suggested and use the standard Sensible Soccer shortcut and it works fine, keeping the SensiStarter settings and saved games. I’m a happy man now!