So I am all excited to get modern warfare 2 for a little relaxation time when I get the chance [which is not often] — only to discover that an install on Windows 7 x64-bit is an absolute nightmare. It’s a ridiculous proposition that a Gaming Studio — Infinity Ward — would release a game without even testing it on Windows 7 — yet this is exactly what they have done, and this is why there has been a huge amount of backlash in respect to this game.
So I am all excited to get modern warfare 2 for a little relaxation time when I get the chance [which is not often] — only to discover that an install on Windows 7 x64-bit is an absolute nightmare. It’s a ridiculous proposition that a Gaming Studio — Infinity Ward — would release a game without even testing it on Windows 7 — yet this is exactly what they have done, and this is why there has been a huge amount of backlash in respect to this game. However, in order to get things running on my PC I thought I would post something to assist those trying to install on a Windows 7 x64-bit build. I note that this is the setup that allowed me to get it working and this may not work for everyone [different hardware etc].
1. The first error I got was a “Failed to Run Install Script” error. To solve this, you must download and install Steam as a separate download first — then open Start → Run and type “C:Program Files(x86)Steamsteam.exe” -install “CD Driver” — where “CD Driver” is “D:” or “E:” or “F:”. So for example the final line would look like — “C:Program Files(x86)Steamsteam.exe” -install “F:”. This will get the Game installed.
2. When I attempted to run the game after install — all I got was nothing but a blank screen which required me to do a reset. To resolve this problem, I needed to fix DirectX. Goto C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappscommoncall of duty modern warfare 2RedistDirectX and run DXSETUP.exe. Install this file and Restart your PC
3. After restart, I got the same error again. So I searched around and found that I had to make the screen size 1024x768 for launch — so I had to adjust my settings for launch. This launched the game but presented me with yet another error.
4. Now I had the game started — but I received nothing but Garbled Text on load. So the game wouldn’t work at all. To solve this, I needed to update to the latest version of ATI Catalyst Software — but of course this is not supported in Windows 7 for my Graphics Card. When you attempt to install this on Windows 7 — it doesn’t get past the install splash screen. To resolve this, you must download a fix from MSFT to install ATI Catalyst Install Manager as Windows 7 has a problem with any sort of legacy card except the newest hardware. This solves the VC++ 2005 redistributable problems which prohibits installing and fixes the garbled text issue.
5. The game still seemed to have a “blackscreen” onload and so I thought that this problem might be related to the fact that it was in fullscreen — so I wanted to shift the game to “windowed mode”. To do this, you have to go into C:Program FilesSteamsteamappscommoncall of duty modern warfare 2players and you will see 2 .cfg files called config and config_mp. Open both these files in Notebook [config is for single player and config_mp is for multiplayer] and find line seta r_fullscreen “1” and change it to “0”. This will fix the game to run in Windowed Mode and you can change it back at any time. When the game starts [and this fix was a key for me] — ensure that you just change the graphics under “settings” to basically make the window full screen.
6. Another problem I experiencing throughout this entire process was a fairly common one such that Comodo Personal Firewall kept buggin me to accept the game as a permissible firewall program. I had to edit a Custom Rule in Comodo to allow the game to access the Internet.
So after close to 4 hours total — combining a 40 minute game install time and then all the time spent trying to resolve these bugs — I managed to the start the game. To be honest, it is completely unacceptable in this day and age to purchase a game and have to go through hoops to try and run it. I would definitely not have purchased this game had I known all issues were present from the start and quite frankly any future games that Infinity Ward produce I will not be getting.
As a consumer, they owe a legal responsibility to ensure that their products are tested on all relevant platforms before they sell the game. It’s so evident that their strategy was to release the game as quickly as possible in order to grab as much revenue as they could in lieu of Christmas and deal with the fallout as it comes. Whilst the official gaming merchandise says “Vista” — it was a fatal error to release the game without testing on Windows 7 and prepare a patch fix for immediate release. Instead, they have angered the very hand that feeds them and in this regards many gamers in the future will not purchasing Infinity Ward games.
While it’s a good game, it’s unacceptable to except a normal consumer to have to go through all this simply to get the game working.
