Spore/Vista
Here is my short review of Spore:
On XP: It's ok. Nothing more, nothing less.
On Vista: I hate it. EA should be ashamed of themselves.
I just spent the last four hours trying to get this game running on my wife's laptop which is more than enough to run the game. Won't even start up - it just crashes to the desktop. The EA support pages and forums are of no help, nor is the download manager. You can't look for updates until you've registered your game, and you can't register the game until it's running. It took several calls navigating the EA phone support menu system to get to a live person... It should be noted at this point that if you ask "the automated system" for tech support on Spore you'll be told to go to EA's web site which was as helpful as a blind tour guide in an art museum. I had to remain silent on the line to confuse the system enough to let me talk to a person. 15 minutes of hold time later I spoke to someone who was able to explain the solution...
Apparently in Vista you have to copy the files from the DVD to your computer, reboot into Safe Mode with networking support, and install the game from Safe Mode. I haven't tried it yet, but WHAT THE **** EA?
On XP: It's ok. Nothing more, nothing less.
On Vista: I hate it. EA should be ashamed of themselves.
I just spent the last four hours trying to get this game running on my wife's laptop which is more than enough to run the game. Won't even start up - it just crashes to the desktop. The EA support pages and forums are of no help, nor is the download manager. You can't look for updates until you've registered your game, and you can't register the game until it's running. It took several calls navigating the EA phone support menu system to get to a live person... It should be noted at this point that if you ask "the automated system" for tech support on Spore you'll be told to go to EA's web site which was as helpful as a blind tour guide in an art museum. I had to remain silent on the line to confuse the system enough to let me talk to a person. 15 minutes of hold time later I spoke to someone who was able to explain the solution...
Apparently in Vista you have to copy the files from the DVD to your computer, reboot into Safe Mode with networking support, and install the game from Safe Mode. I haven't tried it yet, but WHAT THE **** EA?
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Comments
Glad to hear you got it resolved though, still a headache.
Must be something wrong with the disk or there's something on your wife's machine that Spore doesn't like.
Best Buy let me exchange my copy. The replacement didn't work either. I'm going to call them this evening and inquire further.
Vista users have had an extremely wide array of experiences with Spore. Winga stands at one end, and I clearly stand at the other. Take a look at the official forum...
hmm...
and...
All I am suggesting is that if you bought the game and it meets your minimum requirements you deserve to have a working copy.
It'll work
Good luck sir! You have shown far more patience than I would in this situation.