FIle Access Bug

[brettben]

Suddenly have a problems with SE4, whenever I start ANY game, hit the end turn button, and it locks up with a "File Access Denied" message. Even did a complete reinstall, same problem. Anyone have any ideas?

[Matryx]

make sure no files on the hard drive have read-only access and make sure your save game path is not pointing to either a remote network location of indeed to a CD.
That's all I can think of. Sorry

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The Unofficial Space Empires 4 Mod Utility V1.7 (Revision 3)
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Download as a .ZIP <HERE>
Download as a .RAR <HERE>
Download as a .ACE <HERE>
Check a Screenshot of it<HERE>

Check an Alpha Shot of my Mod Editor (Unreleased) <HERE>

Perhaps your SE IV is virus infected and trying to hack your system. From things I have seen lately that is intuitively obvious. Do NOT follow that other poster's suggestion and let it access your read only files - are you an IDIOT ?

[Matryx]

My suggestion was to make sure that none of the Space Empires 4 files were set to read only.

If he had it installed in some protected folder or was accessing it across a network without the correct privaleges then that would explain it.

What I did not tell him to do was to give the program access to sensitive areas of his computer (even though if it was a virus running it would allow it to access these areas and de-protect them anyway) although I agree the wording I chose may have been interpreted in that way.

Admitedly, it could have been virus infected, but by that matter he has re-installed the program already and it still has the same problem, in which case his entire computer would be infected with said virus. An unlikely possiblity but one nonetheless, however, it does not mean I am an idiot as you put it.
Of course, going from his wording he said "Complete Reinstall" which could mean he reinstalled his entire system (Probably not, bad choice of words) which would eliminate the possibility of a virus on his system.

All I can think of, as I said before, is that he has located the SaveGame for the game he is playing in an area which SE4 cannot write to, hence the File Access Denied error.

If indeed you had understood my post as I intended it to be read LCC (Indeed I used a bad choice of words for my suggestion) you would have realised I did not mean to make the entire hard-drive access free, however as any program can change the write attributes of files anyway without user input any potential virus would have this included.

Edit: Sorry if this seems a bit hostile, I'm just clarifying the point I was trying to make.

------------------
The Unofficial Space Empires 4 Mod Utility V1.7 (Revision 3)
------------------
Download as a .ZIP <HERE>
Download as a .RAR <HERE>
Download as a .ACE <HERE>
Check a Screenshot of it<HERE>

Check an Alpha Shot of my Mod Editor (Unreleased) <HERE>

[This message has been edited by Matryx (edited 12 August 2001).]

What you say sounds pitiful. The ONLY WAY a file protection should be modifiable is by a write protected utility specifically designed for that one task! And the ONLY WAY that write protected utility can be written should be that the file is created then immediately run to write protect itself at the original installation. The system you describe has been DESIGNED for hacking!
Edit Typos - Test Your Processor Operation System - Simply dos boot and check the tasks directory to see what is scheduled to run.
If that finds nothing you still need to check the boot up sequence on the hard drive.
[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 12 August 2001).]

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 12 August 2001).]

[Matryx]

My example is the windows file system, any process can change both a file's read/write access without user intervention.
and Yes, I agree, it seems the Windows series has been designed for hacking in mind.

Not wishing to get into the gory details of it, but programs can write protect/unprotect files without the user's knowledge, and as a result, viruses which change program's code can do exactly the same.
P.S. If you're interested, I run both Win98, Win2K and Good Ole Dos6.2
It is certainly possible in all 3 of these. Linux is thankfully more secure, but not much