How to Exorcise You Computer

How to Exorcise Your Computer.

If you've ever played a CWG2 battle on the Internet, via WON, you've probably experianced ghost units. Maybe you have and didn't know it. Some ghost problems don't crash the game, but most do. The purpose of this page is to explain what a ghost unit is, and how to get rid of your ghost problems (aka exorcising your computer)

First of all, what is a ghost unit?

A ghost unit is any unit which stops moving properly. Here are some examples:

1. The unit clones it self and allows you to move the two identical units individually.
2. A unit acts like a real ghost and allows enemy troops to go through it's position without reacting.
3. The unit shows up on different locations on each player's screen. (Your opponent might see the unit as captured, while your screen shows it retreated to the safety of your defensive line.

I have had all of these types of ghosts appear in various battles against various opponents at various times. Any game you play can be crashed due to ghost units. When I first started playing on WON, I never had ghost problems. But as time passed, they became more and more of a problem. Finally, after almost 2 years, I had gone months without being able to finish a game due to ghosts, that's when I finally decided to try to fix the problem.

If you are playing an important battle, like a tournament match, you can save the game, occasionally. If you save the game under a different name each turn, go back to a turn that you know you didn't have the ghost(s). If you are very lucky, you might be able to restart from that point and finish your battle without any ghosts. However, don't count on that fixing your problems, but it is always easier to try to restart from a good save than to restart from the beginning. So give it a shot, it just might work.

If you continue to have ghost problems, as I had, it is time to exorcise you computer. Here's how I did it:

1. Save your downloaded battles from the internet to a floppy disk or CD-RW. (In case you can't find them again)
2. Uninstall CWG2 from your computer. You can insert the CWG2 CD and choose unistall, or open Sierra Utilities and choose unstall a product.
3. Once unistalled, delete anything still in the CWG2 folder.
4. Empty the Recycling Bin.
5. Turn your computer completely off, let it sit for a minute or two, then turn it back on.
6. Run Scan Disk and Disk Defragmentor. (You should use these two anyway, doing so will improve your computer's performance in general. If you don't know how to use these two I will give detailed steps below.)
7. Turn your computer completely off again, then restart it.
8. Make sure you don't have any files dealing with CWG2 still on your computer.
9. Install CWG2.
10. At the end of the installation, let it do the autoupdate, it downloads the 104 patch faster that way for some reason.
11. Now you should have a extra folder in the CWG2 folder names SIGIPatch, or something similar.
12. Congradulations, you have now exorcised your computer.
13. Go on the internet and try to find all the battles you had downloaded before excorcising your computer.
14. Don't use the ones you saved to the floppy disk or CD-RW unless you can't find the battle on the internet, and you really need it.

If you have never experianced a ghost unit, you're lucky. But you should try to prevent them from appearing. I have been told these steps help prevent ghost units.

1. Frequently delete old saved games (Try to keep less than 10 saved games on your computer at any time)
2. Once you finish a game that had ghosts in it, delete those saved files immediately
3. Use Scan Disk and Disk Defragmentor at least once a month (You should use these two anyway, doing so will improve your computer's performance in general. If you don't know how to use these two, I will give detailed steps below.)
4. Empty your Recycle Bin often. (If you don't know how to use this feature, I will give detailed steps below.)
5. I have been told chatting helps some. I don't know about this, but it isn't too hard to say "to you" and "k" at the end of each turn, especially if it does work. Besides, it's kinda nice to know your opponent is still connected to WON. There have been times that I have just clicked Turn and sat there for 10 minutes waiting for my opponent to go, when in reality my opponent had been booted.

                                   How to use Scan Disk and Disk Defragmentor

This is how to use these two applications on a Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Professional computer, Windows 95 should be the same, or very close.

1. Open (double click) My Computer on your desktop
2. Right click on your hard drive, usually C:
3. Choose Properties
4. Click on Tools
5. There should be 3 boxes in the window:
             Error-Checking Status
             Backup Status
             Defragmentation Status
6. Click on Check Now in the Error-Checking Status box
7. Choose either Standard or Thorough, and make sure the Automatically Fix Errors check box has a check. (Standard is faster, but Thorough checks your hard drive for bad sections on the disk)
8. Chances are the Scan Disk will restart a couple times while it is running, if it restarts 10 times it will display a message asking if you want to continue, choose Yes.
9. After the Scan Disk finished, it will give a report, as long as you have 0 bytes in Bad Sectors, you should be ok.
10. Now start the Diskdefragmentor by clicking on Defragment Now in the Defragmentation Status box from step #3.
11. Defragmentor will probably restart a couple times as well, but it won't display a message until it is done.

If it has been a long time since you have used Scan Disk or Disk Defragmentor, or if you never have used them, it will most likely take a couple hours for each to work. But if you use them on a monthly (weekly would be even better) basis, it should only take a half hour to an hour.