"Fallout: NV does not appear to be installed..." SOLVED!

[ein]

edit: solution below

edit: guide with images

What in the world is going on here?

http://i.imgur.com/kjjLvLv.png

I have tried giving this game admin privileges on both the launcher and the executable. I moved it out of the Program Files directory because I'm running Windows 8, so it's on an external drive now and this still happens. I never activated from a disc, I bought the game on Steam and added the DLCs on Steam. It ran fine on the old machine under Windows 7.

Google is not a good friend on this. All the old threads lead to dead ends or just dwindle off.

https://xkcd.com/979/

The one thing I haven't tried is deleting outright, doing a registry cleanup and downloading again fresh to the external drive, which I am about to try overnight. Meanwhile I'd appreciate any help or better yet, sympathy. Lots and lots of sincerely felt sympathy would be great.

[Thunderfury]

Have you tried verifying the file integrity and/or deleting the .ini then verifying?

[ein]

I made sure to give that a go before reinstalling, and restarting the Steam client as well. I didn't get a chance to reinstall and am doing that now. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll make sure to try deleting the ini specifically if I get to that step again with the fresh install.

I suspect deleting then moving to a copy of the old install on a new disk may have left something in the registry from whatever problems it was having with Win8's Program Files permissions. Crossing my fingers for that, anyway. Odd that no one else seems to have this problem.

[ein]

Update:

• complete uninstall
  
• full CCleaner registry workover with prejudice
  
• brand new install to H:\SteamLibrary
  
• deleted default .ini files and verified cache
  
• deleted ClientRegistry.blob and restarted
  
• both executables given admin privileges and XP SP3 / Vista SP2 compatibility
  
• same maddening damned error message
  
• user head a splode

Out of curiosity, is anyone here running this game in a fresh, non-upgrade edition of Windows 8?

[Thunderfury]

Damn. No.. sorry.. Windows 7, here. does Obsidian have a tech support you can get ahold of?

[onealone]

i am running Win8, i have kept it updated, but it is not an upgrade edition, its a fresh install.

also, except for the registry clean, i have basically done all of the above that you listed as well, to no avail.

[ein]

You are having the same install problem, not crash on startup or that sort of thing?

I remember fresh Win8 being the common thread with Origin, but I was able to right that by moving it out of Program Files and adding admin status.

Well I'm going to try and get on contact with Obsidian. Thank you both for the help.

[IainW]

Windows 8=FAIL with games, I had for a day and got rid of it completely..

[ein]

Windows 8 actually performs better than 7 and doesn't have a problem with most games. The only other problems I've had were with Dungeon Defenders and Origin. In both cases, moving them out of Program Files fixed things. 8 is rotten for a lot of reasons, YMMV of course but I don't think games are generally one of them.

[Thunderfury]

Yeah, I've heard nothing but great things about Win8 and games from friends that have it. Oddly enough, one of my buddies has New Vegas and it runs without a problem..

are you trying any mods?

[commando5054]

After I downloaded FNV, it ran fine. But, the day after it made me "reinstall" even though it only verified the filies for a couple of minutes.

[Thunderfury]

Originally posted by commando5054:

After I downloaded FNV, it ran fine. But, the day after it made me "reinstall" even though it only verified the filies for a couple of minutes.

My TF2 did that for a few days as well. No idea why.

[ein]

UPDATE! FIXED!

There was no Installed Path entry in the registry for this game. What finally solved my problem was to make an entry at

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\FalloutNV]

and then add a new key manually using the entry for Fallout 3 as a model. Under the new FalloutNV key I made a new String Value with the value name "Installed Path" and the value data as follows:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout New Vegas\

Note my registry knowledge is very limited and to anyone who tries this themselves, I can't make any guarantees as to your results. If you do attempt it, please backup your registry first!

Good luck and happy wandering...

[Z3t487]

what do you mean with "the entry for fallout 3 as a model"?

[ein]

If you have Fallout 3 installed, it should have a key under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout3] with an Installed Path string value according to wherever you've put the game. For some reason, New Vegas never put a similar entry in the registry on my machine, and so the launcher didn't know where to look and only gave me the option to install the game.

So I made a key just like the one for Fallout 3, but with the correct details for New Vegas instead.

http://i.imgur.com/rKPMOO4.png

Note that this is for 64 bit Windows 8. I think the 32 bit flavor will be in a different location.

[White Male Privilige]

Originally posted by einexile:

UPDATE! FIXED!

There was no Installed Path entry in the registry for this game. What finally solved my problem was to make an entry at

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\FalloutNV]

and then add a new key manually using the entry for Fallout 3 as a model. Under the new FalloutNV key I made a new String Value with the value name "Installed Path" and the value data as follows:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout New Vegas\

Note my registry value is very limited and to anyone who tries this themselves, I can't make any guarantees as to your results. If you do attempt it, please backup your registry first!

Good luck and happy wandering...

This worked for me, thank you very much.