Activation and Vista

astonish

I know the FAQ says that the activation isn't working properly, but I'm ready to put up with a tiny bit of annoyance to play these games (<3 Sam & Max). Has anyone had any success with the activation process on vista (32-bit) or can we get an ETA on when it will work?

I have a brand new vista PC (than ran the demo swimmingly), but I also have an old XP machine, could I activate it on there and then play it over the network or something? Does activating the game on one PC permanently lock it to that PC?

Thanks

Emily

Culture Shock is the only Sam & Max episode that doesn't currently activate correctly on Vista, and that will be fixed in the very near future. Episodes 2 and 3 should be just fine.

As far as I know you can't activate the game on your XP machine and then play it over a network on your Vista machine... but then again, I've never actually tried it. If you mapped the XP machine as a drive for the Vista machine? Maybe.

There's no problem activating on more than one computer at a time, so if you want to give that a try, don't worry about messing up your activations. Just make sure to download onto any machine you want it activated on using the methods described here.

astonish

Purchased and downloaded...

FYI I had absolutely zero problems installing and playing culture shock on a Vista 32-bit PC. It may be because I turned the UAC security off in the control panel, but absolutely zero troubles here.

Emily

FYI I had absolutely zero problems installing and playing culture shock on a Vista 32-bit PC. It may be because I turned the UAC security off in the control panel, but absolutely zero troubles here.

Have you rebooted the computer since then?

The problem with Vista is not in the game itself, it's that the computer's network address changes every time you reboot, and that's one of the things the activation system was looking at (so with every reboot it thought it had been installed on a new machine, and eventually you run out of activations).

Starting with ep2 we made it so the system isn't looking at that as part of the activation process.

nfs480

Do you mean the IP address on the NIC? Because that does tend to remain the same each reboot and it changes just as often as XP's. If it were an issue of the network address changing then XP should have the very same problem.

TelltaleTool

No, MAC address. vista messes with them.

Venusy

I'm having a problem with activating any of the games on Vista. As soon as I click on the "I've already purchased this" link, an error message pops up with "Error: Missing one or more tags" and boots me right back to the launcher.

If it changes anything, the games are installed on an external hard drive, and the same installation worked fine on XP. Do I need to redownload the games to get the "tags" to work properly?

Emily

This isn't a Vista problem. The "missing tags" error generally means something went wrong with the activation system either during download or when the game tried to auto-activate the first time it was launched (i.e. a firewall prevents the game from talking to the activation server).

Is this the same computer you used before, or did you move the external hard drive from one machine to another? If that's what happened, then that's the reason you're getting the error. The game does not stay activated if you move it from one machine to another and you get that missing tags error.

Redownloading should resolve the problem (you can look up the order here), or if you don't want to redownload you can click Activation Support and follow the instructions to get an activation key from us.

Venusy

Yeah, I did move the external hard drive from the old computer to the new one. Redownloading all of them now, thanks for your help.

runulf

I too have a problem with activating all episodes of Sam & Max on 32-bit Vista. If I run the games as an administrator, they activate automatically but when I go back and run the games as a limited user, I get that "Play Demo"-screen again. Are the games not registered for all users on a computer?

runulf

OK, after a few reinstalls, I have gotten episode 2-6 to work. I guess I have to wait for the vista patch now.

Emily

I don't know all the ins and outs of how the games work with the various user accounts, but I know they work best when you install and run them as an administrator.

If you want the Vista-compatible version of Culture Shock that we have been sending people while you wait for the patched retail version, just shoot an email to support@telltalegames.com and ask for it (if you haven't already).

TimeDoctor

What do I do if I e-mail support and get no updated version, but instead someone who doesn't understand the problem?

Emily

Sorry about that. We missed the second email where you said you were using Vista.

I'm sending you the instructions now.

TimeDoctor

Thanks so much, works good
FYI now that we're done, here is my write-up of the situation:
First Post:
http://www.gameqablog.com/2007/05/telltalegames-heart.html

The Follow-Up:
http://www.gameqablog.com/2007/06/update-telltalegames-heart.html

Emily

I'm glad you were happy with the resolution.

In any case, the worst part of the whole situation is that I had to actually leave a message in the forum thread I linked to earlier to get a support person who understood my issue.

It really was an oversight on our part, not someone at support being oblivious to the Vista problem. If you had written back to the email you originally received and reiterated that you were trying to get Culture Shock working on Vista, you would have had the same result. The people who answer email and the people who answer questions the forum are all the same people.

But it doesn't really matter. I'm just glad you can play your game now.