RCT3: Platinum freezes on "pre-activate" loading screen

[Green Filling]

Today, I bought RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum! when I got nostalgic about having the old Gold disc on my desk. I thought, wouldn't it be fun to play it again, but this time on my Windows 8.1 computer?

Well, when I load the game, I can go through all of the main menus fine, but it's when I try to start up an actual game (in tutorial, career, and sandbox mode) that the game goes haywire on me. The first loading screen goes by quickly, but then one called "pre-activate" gets stuck around 32-34%. I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the game via Steam, but that didn't help. I downloaded the newest version of DirectX, but that didn't fix it either.

I even went to Windows help to try and do some configuring with the compatibility, but when I went through the steps to troubleshoot it, some weird things happened. I swiped my screen to the left, hit search, typed in "run programs" and clicked on "Run programs made for previous versions of Windows" like the troubleshooting said to do, and then when I actually found the RTC3 file, I tried to open it so it would troubleshoot the compatability for me... but it said "catastrophic failure" and wouldn't let me open it. I looked up that term, but as far as I can tell, no one's had issues with it and RTC3 before.

I'd really like to play this game again, but if this keeps up, I'll have to get a refund and I won't be able to play it.

Note: the game has no thumbnail on my desktop, and the shortcut is titled a .url shortcut that goes to the Internet... not sure why, since it works fine until I try to start up a new game.
Also, I have tried validating the game cache. After the validation process, a little dialogue box comes up and says "447 files failed to validate and will be reaquired." Nothing happens after that.

Please help me figure this out so I can play it again!

[Crazed Possum]

1. Have you verified the game's cache yet?

Library-right-click (RCT3) -Properties-Local files-Verify cache

[Green Filling]

Originally posted by Crazed Possum:

1. Have you verified the game's cache yet?

Library-right-click (RCT3) -Properties-Local files-Verify cache

Yes, and I included that in the post above.

[Crazed Possum]

1. Uninstall the entire game.

2. Then..........make sure to delete your ATARI folder under C:\Main user\AppData\ (ATARI) which includes 2 files.

3. If it were me........i would also make sure the folder (RCT3) is deleted from MY Documents

4.Reboot the computer.

5. Reinstall the game.

I would say somewhere during the download you had problems. When reinstalling don't play or do anything until you get the game downloaded. This is what i would do if i had these problems.

[Green Filling]

Originally posted by Crazed Possum:

1. Uninstall the entire game.

2. Then..........make sure to delete your ATARI folder under C:\Main user\AppData\ (ATARI) which includes 2 files.

3. If it were me........i would also make sure the folder (RCT3) is deleted from MY Documents

4.Reboot the computer.

5. Reinstall the game.

I would say somewhere during the download you had problems. When reinstalling don't play or do anything until you get the game downloaded. This is what i would do if i had these problems.

Thanks - I think it was part of the problem that I hadn't realized my Norton stopped working. I activated it again and everything's good to go!