BASIC TROUBLESHOOTING

This page will help you to solve typical problems, which can appear while
installing repacks (mine included) and running installed games.

Essential advices

Before reading further, make sure you’re through the

following steps

Your Windows username have to be latin-only (numbers allowed

too)
Many games and cracks (especially latest CODEX ones) do not properly work on
accounts with non-latin symbols. Also complex repacks can use additional
software which also may crash while running in “ВАСЯ” username folder. So
change your username once and for all. Or better yet, create new latin-name user
in Windows and completely switch to it. That way the folder name will be a good
one and all above-mentioned software and cracks will work.

● How to change user name in Windows 7 Professional?

● How to change user name in Windows 10?

Re-hash the downloaded torrent

Torrents download content in blocks. Sometimes some blocks download with
errors. Obviously, if you try to unpack the data from damaged archive, nothing
good will happen. So rehash. This procedure checks each downloaded block for
completion. Broken ones will be automatically set for redownload.

Steps for rehashing in uTorrent (other clients are very similar)

● Open uTorrent and select the downloaded repack

● Stop this download
● Press right mouse button and select “Force Re-check”

After rehashing is complete, it will be either 100% (GOOD, OK TORRENT) or

incomplete (like 99.8%). In that case start this torrent again and let it finish. Then
rehash again to make sure that NOW it’s complete. If the rehashing always drops
down from 100%, you have a bad memory module (DIMM), and should replace it
as soon as possible.

Disable antivirus
Most likely you have at least one antivirus active. Or even two, like default
Windows Defender + AVAST or Malwarebytes or something else. While installing
MY repacks (or repacks from other safe groups, listed in my FAQ), disable them.
WD and MWB are the only two AVs, which block parts of my installers, while other
AVs don’t give a damn. Of course, it’s false positive reaction to my “run.exe”
program, which allows execution of multiple compressors/decompressors on all
your CPU cores. Check VirusTotal report on this file.

Windows Defender can be properly disabled/enabled with this tool.

My thoughts on AVs in general

Modern AVs are paranoid. They usually see danger in safe files and skip real
malware. This is more actual for compressed/protected software and cracks,
especially from Chinese groups, such as 3DM.
This may sound scary, but in the real world THERE IS NO ANTIVIRUS, which will
protect you from modern trojans, bitcoin miners and similar stuff. In most cases
harmful apps won’t be blocked, but absolutely safe programs – will be, as false
positives. And since AVs usually work silently, without even notifying you about
blocked stuff – you will wonder, why the installer don’t work or why the game
don’t want to launch.

One of the biggest downfalls of AVs is they resident mode, when ALL open files,
even not executables, arc checked on the fly. This mode can slow down a fast
installer for HOURS, because every unpacked file will be checked with AVs
engine. Complex repacks do lots of HDD read/writes, and it alone is not fast, but
coupled with AV will ruin your experience.

The best antivirus is your brain. Don’t download suspicious software, don’t open
attachments in your email, keep your browser up-to-date, disable Flash and Java.
This will protect you from 99% of potential malware. You can use antivirus in scan
mode on daily basis, with VERBOSE mode, when you will see, what AV counts a
real danger.

One more thing – NEVER EVER trust only one antivirus. False positives appear
more frequent, than any real virus. Upload any suspicous file to virustotal.com
and only then take actions.

If you still need AV for scanning, I’d settle for Dr.Web or ESET tools, working in
VERBOSE mode, and not killing stuff automatically.

Set UAC to a minimum level (Never Notify)

UAC (User Access Control) is another system, “protecting” you from suspicious
software. It may be somewhat useful for total noobs, who sees the PC first time in
life, but if you’re here downloading repacks, I guess you’re not a total noob
anymore.
Complex repacks require execution of different (de)compressors from User Temp
folder. Default UAC settings restrict those files from execution, stopping the
installer.

● How to change UAC settings in Windows Vista/7/8/8.1

● How to change UAC settings in Windows 10 (video)

Make sure you have enough Virtual Memory

If you have 4 GB of RAM, set virtual memory to 8 GB (Custom size: set both initial
and maximum size to 8192)

If you have 8 GB of RAM, set virtual memory to 16 GB (Custom size: set both
initial and maximum size to 16384).

If you have 16 GB of RAM, set virtual memory also to 16 GB (Custom size: set
both initial and maximum size to 16384)

If you have 32 GB of RAM, set virtual memory also to 8 GB (Custom size: set both
initial and maximum size to 8192) just in case.

Do not set “System managed size”, cause it’s slower. Fixed VM size is the most
efficient setting.

● How to change Virtual Memory size in Windows 7 (video)

● How to change Virtual Memory size in Windows 10 (video)

Why Virtual Memory is important?

Upon execution, any EXE in Windows request a certain amount of memory from
OS Memory Manager. If free RAM is enough, the application will receive it. If no
VM is present and free memory is below app’s request, you’ll see a crash. VM
(also called pagefile) is a RAM imitation, saving you from such problems.
Application doesn’t know if it received actual RAM, or virtual one. With large VM
file you usually won’t see memory-related crashes. Slowdowns (dut to a slower
HDD access speed) – sure.
Use 2 GB Memory Limit option
For a while my installers have an option of limiting the RAM usage to 2 GB. If your
machine has 8 GB of RAM or less, always use it. 8 GB RAM is a very low amount
nowadays, with browsers alone eating half of that size.

Run the setup with Windows 7 compatibility

If you’re using Windows 10 and have errors with missing files or something like
this, run the setup.exe with compatibility set to Windows 7. And run it as admin.

Run the setup in Safe Mode

Some antiviruses can’t ever be turned off completely and will delete necessary
files even when you think you turned them off. You didn’t. They know better. So in
that case reboot in Safe mode and install again. No crapware will interrupt in the
installation process.

Make sure you have enough free space on target drive

DO NOT ignore the “No enough disk space” message, if the installer says so.
Also it’s recommended to NOT install repacks on drives, which have just a few
more Gigabytes of space left after installation. During installations with low
memory available installer may eat more free space it stated.

Turn off any heavy load on the target drive

If you have torrents active on the same physical drive, on which you’re installing
the game and this drive is not SSD – expect REALLY LONG installation. Any
application, creating constant heavy load on your disk will drive you mad while
your installation. You can continue seeding after you install the game.

Try install the game NOT to C: drive OR specifically to C: drive

Windows rights system is a tricky thing. If you’re not a proper admin in your OS,
some folders/drives may be limited for your account. Sometimes game cannot be
installed on C:, only on other drives, and sometimes – vice versa, only on system
drive. And of course, avoid installing games to Program Files\Program Files (x86)
folders. This folder usually has the most limited rights.

Check your Windows folder (and below) for unarc.dll – if this file
exists, delete it
My repacks use custom unarc.dll, NOT compatible with other unarc.dll, which you
could download in hope to fix “Unarc.dll Error”. Remember, there are SEVERAL
types of those errors, they mean different things. And other unarc.dll won’t help.

Run setup with proper rights, as shown on this image

Typical errors and
solutions
I can’t run the setup.exe, it’s missing or nothing
happens when I try to launch it!
Your Windows Defender/SmartScreen (or similar protection software, even
browser) blocked it.

1. While the file is on your desktop or in one of your user folders, right click or
press and hold on the file, and click/tap on Properties.

2. Under the General tab, click/tap on the Unblock button, and click/tap on OK.

NOTE: If you do not see an Unblock button, then the file has already been
unblocked.
More info on the subject can be found here.

It is not found any file specified for ISArcExtract

There are four possible reasons for that popular error. Listed by popularity:

● Your download is broken, some BIN-files are not complete. To solve it,
rehash the torrent, following instructions written far above.
● You didn’t download all necessary files for your selection. Say, you’re
installing the game in English, but didn’t download
setup-fitgirl-selective-english.bin from torrent or filehoster. Download
required file and try again.
● You’re running the installation from a folder with a weird name, like
“C:\Users\ВАСЯ-ПУПКИН\Downloads\__[rutor.is]_Super Fitgirl Repack
[FitGirl Repack]\”. In such cases setup.exe can’t see it’s BIN-files and
can’t proceed them. Move setup.exe + all BIN files to a shorter path, like
“C:\Repacks\Super Repack” and run installer from there.
● You have antivirus or UAC active, which prevented rebuiding of
temporary archive (I use them a lot) and thus that archive can’t be
extracted. So, disable AV or UAC and reinstall the game.

Visual C++ Runtime Installer

I also recommend you to install all C++ Redistributables. You may try this small
All-In-One pack or get them separately from Microsoft site.
WINE Troubleshooting
Under WINE the full-screen background takes over the desktop completely, so
that no other program (including the installer window, or even native Linux apps
running side by side) can’t be used. The solution to this is to open winecfg ->
Graphics tab -> check Emulate a virtual desktop.

The installer gets stuck on “Checking admin rights…” if something newer than
Windows XP is emulated. (Wine doesn’t handle UAC and admin checks properly
yet – every program runs as admin even if Windows Vista/7/8/10 is emulated.) The
solution to this is to open winecfg -> Applications tab -> set the Windows version
to Windows XP globally (as the installer spawns other processes with
mismatching Windows versions – this usually ends badly).

Also, you should replace WINE’s cmd with original one by executing the following
command:

winetricks cmd