culture shock won't activate

Spoon

Hi,
I just tried to run "Sam and Max: Culture Shock" and as the game is starting it says:

"Please run this program from the Administrator account so it can set up your license. Once the license is set up, you can run it from any account." (right after the "retrieving key..." message)

Well, the problem is that I'm already running my pc from the administator account.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Emily

Did you install the game while in the Administrator account?

Spoon

Yep. I did.

Emily

I'm not sure what the problem is, but you can click Activation Support and follow the instructions and we'll unlock it manually. (I'm assuming that after you get that message it takes you to the page with the Activation Support link in the bottom right corner?)

Also - did you install into the default directory, or not?

Spoon

Thanks for your reply, but I'm not even getting to that start screen. The "Culture Shock" program just closes after that message comes up.
I tried activating "Situation Comedy" and that works just fine. Weird.

Emily

Okay, I'm going to have to check with Digital River about this. Is the game installed in the default directory? Which operating system are you using?

Spoon

It's installed in the default directory : "C:\Programme\Telltale Games\Sam & Max - Culture Shock". The operation system is Windows XP (german, SP2 installed).

Spoon

Any news yet?

Spoon

Hello?

I just found out that I get the same error when trying to start any of your demos. And as the offer-install.exe of Situation Comedy isn't a demo, that could be the reason why this works. Could be some weird registries settings in my Windows XP installation though.

Jake

The way we package our games changed as of Situation: Comedy, so it sounds like this new method works for you, while the old method doesn't

Fortunately, we will soon be releasing an updated version of Culture Shock which uses the new packaging method, so you should be in luck! Keep your eyes out for news of the updated version in the near future.

Emily

Thanks for bumping this up. I haven't gotten an answer to it yet.

Regarding the Situation: Comedy game that ends in offer.exe -- it's pretty much the same as any of our other demos, and if it does not activate automatically, it reverts to demo mode. The only difference between this game and other demos is that clicking the "buy now" button takes you to Telltale's store instead of starting an automatic checkout process. This small difference shouldn't matter for what you're having trouble with.

There are a few other differences to Situation: Comedy that haven't appeared in any of our other games yet, so it's possible that Situation: Comedy is working for you because those changes inadvertantly fixed the problem you're having.

Let me try again to find out what would cause this. Sorry for the delay.

Spoon

Hey,

I found a work-around for this problem! I just read a post where emily said that one shouldn't use the win98 compability mode when starting sam and max. If doing so it says that the key isn't valid anymore.

So I thought that might let me get to the start screen at least. So I tried that win98 compability mode and I was able to activate Culture Shock.
But the problem still persisted: Instead of getting the error message before the start screen, now I got it after I had pressed "Launch Game".

I didn't give up and tried the other compability modes. At last I found that the "Windows2000" mode works just fine. It lets me activate the game and actually start it. Also it is not the demo version I'm playing as I checked that I'm able to go out to the streets.

I hope this helps anyone who might have this problem in the future.

Edit: It even works now with the compability mode turned off.

Emily

Thanks for the info. That's sort of weird but if it works, it works!

Edit: It even works now with the compability mode turned off.