Microsoft Vista and DII issues

[Adam King]

Here's a problem that i haven't seen anybody talking about:

When I first installed D2 to Vista, I had no problems. Now, all of the sudden, no sound will run. I go to the in-game sound options and both the 3D sound and sound effects options are toggled off and in gray so that they are untoggle-able. Other than that, the game runs perfectly. Any takers?

[Adam King]

Sorry about the double post, but I just got to Act II and all of the sudden the game freezes up after a minute or two of being in the sewers in addition to the sound issue. UUUUGH.

[EviLRobot]

So I happily got a new computer. Nice and fancy, with Vista. However, when I play D2 (and yes, I have it set to the XP compatibility mode) as soon as I enter a game and move around, the screen freezes, goes blank, then returns with a messed up visuals in game. Odd patterns of blackness and parts of the game skins, and all of the enemies, characters, and NPC's blink.

I am having almost the same issue. As Senshiki pointed out, it has not been addressed yet. The game is installed and runs successfully, but after I log in and get to the character selection screen, it will freeze, disappear, and re-appear with various parts mis-matched all over. The mouse is either frozen or disappears completely, although you can randomly click on things.

I assumed that since the graphics show up scrambled it was a video card issue, but the driver for my display adapter (Intel 829456 Express Chipset Family) is up to date and I am running D2 under XP SP2 compatibility mode. Just like Senshiki, I have a brand new computer.

I have followed all of the troubleshooting steps listed below. Please someone find a fix for this!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is Blizzard's canned response to Vista compatibility issues:

"Thank you for emailing the Blizzard technical support department in
regards to your issue. If you are running Microsoft Windows Vista and are
having problems running Diablo II, we have some troubleshooting steps
that will assist in getting the game up and running.

If at any point you receive an error message from Windows stating "This
program has known compatibility issues," please first make sure the
game is fully patched to the most recent version. You can patch the game
by connecting to Battle.net for the auto-patch or you can download and
run the stand-alone patch from the Diablo II Patch Page at
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mdt0387p. If the patch does not
correct the problem, please reinstall the game per the instructions
below.

Now, run a thorough scandisk and defrag of your hard drive(s). You
will probably find it helpful to disable your screen saver and power
management features before you scandisk or defrag. Sometimes Windows will
restart the defragmentation and/or scandisk if your screen saver or
power management kicks in. The following webpage has instructions on how to
complete this: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mgi0559p.

Now reinstall Diablo II and download and install the latest Diablo II
patch from http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mdt0387p.

If you are still encountering problems please test the game after
trying each of the steps below. Each solution listed has been reported to
solve these problems for other customers.

- Make sure the latest video drivers you are using are compatible with
the latest version of DirectX or you could experience video problems.
Contact your video card manufacturer to ensure compatibility if you
cannot find the information on the page you downloaded your video drivers
from. Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX from
http://www.microsoft.com/directx/ho...ads/default.asp.

- Make sure you have the latest drivers for your Video and Sound cards.
You'll want to check with your computer manufacturer or the Video/Sound
card manufacturer's website for the current drivers that match the
model of card you have in your system. A list of manufacturers with contact
information can be found at
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=msi02054p.

- Download and install the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard.
Check the motherboard manufacturer's website for updated chipset
drivers, first. If you can't find updated drivers at the manufacturer's
website, the next two most common locations for chipset drivers are
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2 and
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/

- Before starting the game, make sure there are no other programs
running in the background. Instructions for how to shutdown all background
applications can be found at
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=agn0558p.

- Our games run in 640 x 480 with 256 colors. Try setting your desktop
to this resolution on going to the Compatibility tab before starting
the game. Vista users may find they cannot set this resolution, so they
can skip this step. If you are not sure how to do this please contact
Microsoft for further assistance.

- Make sure all Power Management settings are disabled or turned off.
If you have a screen saver, set it to "None" before playing the game.

We only offer support for the game if played on an Administrator
account. Please make sure the game is running in administrator mode. In
order to set the game as Administrator Mode, please follow the steps below:

1. Right click on the Diablo II icon.
2. Select "Run as Administrator"

If you have additional permissions questions, you should refer to your
Windows help files or documentation.

If that does not allow you to run the game, please make sure you set
the game to Windows XP SP 2 compatibility mode.

1. Right click on the Diablo II icon.
2. Select "Properties"
3. Click on the "Compatibility" tab
4. Select "Windows XP SP2"
5. Click "OK"

In some instances we have found disabling the User Account Control
(UAC) has also alleviated some of the strict permissions Vista has.

NOTE: Disabling the UAC can open your computer up to potential
security risks. Please be advised if you are not comfortable disabling this
we recommend you contact Microsoft for further options.

To disable the UAC:

1. Click "Start"
2. Click "Control Panel"
3. Click "User Accounts"
4. Under the User Accounts screen click on "User Accounts" (this is a
second time you'll see this option)
5. Click on "Turn User Account Control on or off"
6. Uncheck "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your
computer.
7. Click "OK"
8. Click "Restart Now"

Please let me know if any of this helps.


Regards,
Peter N.
Technical support
Blizzard Entertainment"

[Pipes]

My Vista experience has been troubling. Logging in to battlenet is very laggy. The mouse moves extremely slow in the character selection screen and create/join game screen. Game play is a little better but in a large game the video is choppy and game play is slow. I'm beginning to wonder if it's my graphics card, however this is a new freaking computer in 2007 so I can't believe it would be that. Power supply? It's only 250W so that could be an issue. Any suggestions. I'm running dual core AMD 4400+ with 2GB memory

[Curtain]

Well, I haven't played diablo2 Non expansion (the disc is version1.03 idk if theres any significance in telling that since u can just install patches whenever u want but i just felt like putting that in i guess) in a while and my friends started playing it so i have wanted to but the last few times i did my dad said the connection to our internet started to fail more often and uninstalled it (right in the middle of a meph run -.-). I had patch 1.11 and it was working fine then my dad came up. The first time it broke the internet company said it may have been our ethernet card...I am not sure though what Useast servers would do to it. My friends play it and nothing happens but when i went to my friends house and we went onto my acct the next day the connection failed?? Could it be my account (i know that sounds silly but its the only thing can think of) If anyone else have encountered a connection fail in diablo 2, Please tell me.

I use windows Xp but i figured this would the the right forum.

[humblegar]

A few things:

Vista is not just Vista, please say what version you are using when posting. In every forum I have read Vista Ultimate seems to deal with D2 fine, Vista Home Premium seems to always have trouble.

Some recommend Virtual PC for Diablo 2, I have the following experience (Virtual XP on Vista Home Premium):
- the graphics card that is emulated cannot be changed, leaving me with a small window of diablo 2. Going from fullscreen to a window and back blanks out the screen a.s.o.
- the mouse is sluggish.
- you need to manually patch it, because until you patch it it will use 15 minutes to start, just like on vista home premium. After patching it, d2 starts up fine in the virtual pc.
- its fine for trading but nothing else in my limited experience. Feel free to post tips on improving it.

Dual boot, I have not tried this yet, but it seems like a sensible and probably very nice solution. I just want to try making my Vista HP work first.

Vista Ultimate, as mentioned, seems to deal with D2 much better than Vista Home Premium, but again, that's just an observations from forums. Its two different editions, and for all I know as different as two different operating systems.

[Coleman]

My Vista experience has been troubling. Logging in to battlenet is very laggy. The mouse moves extremely slow in the character selection screen and create/join game screen. Game play is a little better but in a large game the video is choppy and game play is slow. I'm beginning to wonder if it's my graphics card, however this is a new freaking computer in 2007 so I can't believe it would be that. Power supply? It's only 250W so that could be an issue. Any suggestions. I'm running dual core AMD 4400+ with 2GB memory

Same things been happening to me. I just got a brand new computer and i get horrible lag when logging onto my battlenet account. Practically all of my other games run prefectly and i cant even run a 7(or something) year old game?? Anyways i do have Vista and running practically the same system, a dual core amd 4400... and 2 gigs of memory. Same problem i guess...

[MichelRPG]

people, all I can tell say is that you all stay away from vista. Really, there have been sooooo many reports about it, it's still to young to be reliable. Wait for about a year for most issues to have been sorted out and hopefully blizzard might have patched things up a bit for compatibility.

[chomperjones]

does anyone know why i would be getting a "unable to start LNG manager" error every time i try to start a game or join a a game?

[tyciol]

I reinstalled D2 and so did my brother and it wouldn't work for either of us because of Vista.

But then I just downloaded patch v1.11 manually and it works fine. I figure that patch must have fixed the Vista issues. Fair enough.