EB acting strange, and vanilla RTW not working at all

[GuardNo1]

I have been playing EB for only about a week. Have been playing RTW for about a decade!

As of today, it's all gone very strange indeed. I am getting quite regular CTDs in EB (not the post-battle kind, just seemingly random), and strangest of all, the unit controls in the battle (halt, formations, fire at will etc) have dissapped from their usual place. Instead, they are only visible as a slide-down menu that appears when I move my cursor to the top of the screen. Meanwhile, the battle radar has relocated to the top right hand side of the screen.

I thought I had changed the settings, but I can't find any way to get the usual set-up back!

And then there's these CTDs happening too. I started a new campaign, but same deal. I started RTW vanilla to see if the in-game situation with hidden controls and a shifted radar were the same there, but found that as soon as I try to start a new Imperial campaign on RTW, I get an immediate CTD - something that wasn't happening in EB.

Anyone know what on Earth is going on?

[GuardNo1]

I have a feeling that my anti-virus Kaspersky has done something to it. I was asked a strange question and I agreed to Kaspersky blocking something late last night just before bed.

Kaspersky didn't tell me what file it was blocking, that field was empty, so I had no choice but to say yes block it. But it must have been a RTW or EB file that got zapped.

Will post updates when I have explored this more.

[GuardNo1]

Kaspersky had blocked Rome Total War and restricted it. I have changed all that but the game is still not working, so will see if there's a way to undo what I agreed to about this time yesterday, and if not then will just have to do a reinstall.

Stupid Kaspersky.

[Ludens]

As of today, it's all gone very strange indeed. I am getting quite regular CTDs in EB (not the post-battle kind, just seemingly random), and strangest of all, the unit controls in the battle (halt, formations, fire at will etc) have dissapped from their usual place. Instead, they are only visible as a slide-down menu that appears when I move my cursor to the top of the screen. Meanwhile, the battle radar has relocated to the top right hand side of the screen.

I thought I had changed the settings, but I can't find any way to get the usual set-up back!

I can't explain the crashes, but the changed interface is normal. What you are seeing is the so-called "minimal UI". This can be changed with a setting in the preferences.txt file (the one in the preferences folder, not the one in the main R:TW folder), or via the trivial script menu.

Incidentally, although I know Kaspersky is very quick to block suspicious files, you may want to consider the possibility that it detected an actual threat. Maybe you should run a full virus scan before reinstalling.

[d'Arthez]

Could also be a corruption issue on your harddrive. If critical files are damaged, inaccessible, or altered you can get a lot of strange crashes as well. The fact that RTW seems to point in that direction.

Or alternatively, some issue with your memory, but that is a long shot, and as far as I am aware regular RTW is far less taxing than EB is.

[GuardNo1]

But why has the programme suddenly changed to "minimal UI"? And how do I change it back?

I am currently doing a complete re-install of RTW and of EB, as even a system restore to before the strangeness, and a change of the RTW to "trusted" in Kaspersky has not fixed the problem.

As for the possibility of it being a genuine threat that has been detected...if Kaspersky's solution kills the game (and it does), then what am I meant to do? I suppose I could have a dodgy version of the RTW 1.3 or 1.5 updates, or of EB, but I got them from mainstream sources recommended on forums like this one, or on the official RTW or EB sites.

[Ludens]

But why has the programme suddenly changed to "minimal UI"? And how do I change it back?

Many players prefer the minimal UI for battles - although I am not sure if EB changes this by default. Either way, you can change it easily. Do you use the little script menu to start EB? There should be an option to for minimal UI there. If there isn't, or when you don't use the menu, you can change it in the preferences.txt file (the one in the preferences folder, not the one in the main R:TW folder).

I am currently doing a complete re-install of RTW and of EB, as even a system restore to before the strangeness, and a change of the RTW to "trusted" in Kaspersky has not fixed the problem.

As for the possibility of it being a genuine threat that has been detected...if Kaspersky's solution kills the game (and it does), then what am I meant to do? I suppose I could have a dodgy version of the RTW 1.3 or 1.5 updates, or of EB, but I got them from mainstream sources recommended on forums like this one, or on the official RTW or EB sites.

It could be that the file was infected after install, or something. Let us know if the reinstall of R:TW and EB works.