Solution to EQ crashes to Desktop in Windows 7 (KB 2488113)
 

Hello fellow gamers,

I keep seeing threads cropping up about crashing to desktop in Windows 7 while playing EQ. I have responded to three threads so far with a solution that worked for me. However, threads with various titles regarding this problem keep popping up. I am creating this thread with the hope that the title will be explicit enough to prevent futher threads from being created.

The scope of this problem should be very large - essentially any Windows 7 system with SP1 is susceptible. If you have this problem, you need a patch from Microsoft. See the Knowledge Base article and downloadable files at this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2488113

This post might possibly be better placed in the Technical forum, but it seems that people are posting in the bug forum and I want them to be able to see this. If it should be moved, please do so Mr. moderator.

I crashed twice last night engaging sand scarabs in EC. It happened both times almost identically. I also crashed while right clicking to trade with a merchant in WC in the houses near the Qeynos zone once today. Every time the crash was immediate without any slow down or any other indication/ warning message. Running Win7 Home Premium 64bit.

Edit; forgot to mention, I will try this tonight and report any success. Thanks a bunch for the solution.

So, downloaded and installed - completely erased my settings on my computer, desktop gone, icons gone, browser settings gone, everything gone. Yay for system restore.

What? Are you saying that patch wiped out your desktop and other settings? No way should that happen.

I haven't played much since this update was released (about a month ago) but I believe I have still had a couple of crashes in that time.

Also, this problem is not dependent on SP1 - I had it looong before SP1 was out.

I tried installing this patch this morning only to find that I have it installed already. Perhaps this is not the fix for the crashes I am getting.

Ok, a couple of things. First, I found out that I had to install that same patch twice. Why? Because after I patched for SP1, a Silverlight 4 fix came through auto update that apparently put the same bugged DLLs onto my machine that the Windows 7 SP1 patch did. I think it is worth a try for you to uninstall the patch (a necessary step) and then re-install it. This worked for me.

There is one other try that is probably worth a shot. Funkyguru posted about it in a previous thread about crashing to desktop. It involves setting processor affinity. I also took this step because it seemed like a good one, but my problems did not completely go away until I did the KB2488113 patch. Anyway, here are Funkyguru's instructions and an excerpt from his comments:

1. Locate your EQ folder
2. Open your EQ folder then create a new text doc within it
3. Open the text doc you just created and copy/paste in the following line:
c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 1 eqgame.exe patchme
4. Save the text doc then right-click it and rename as eqgame.bat
5. Run the eqgame.bat file you just created (Or make a shortcut on your desktop, whatever tickles your fancy)
This issue was haunting me for ages and was totally random; some days it would happen several times in short span and then not again for several days. I also tried lowering the frame rate to ~30 fps which 'appeared' to lessen the frequency of the issue to some degree (Pretty hard to tell considering how random it had been) but did not resolve the issue completely.

After some investigation I found out that the issue might stem from the fact that EQ, at least the Titanium version I am using, can have some kind of conflict with multiple cores as it was never designed specifically with them in mind. The .bat basically forces EQ to run on 1 processor (/affinity 1 being CPU 0). After trying this solution I've not had the issue occur and it's now been ~8 weeks

I will try this tonight. Thanks a bunch for your helpful information. Sucks to have eight cores and only get to use one though :p

EQ isn't multi threaded so you're just stopping it from moving between cores, not stopping it from running on multiple cores at once (it could never do that).

The processor affinity thing had no effect on the crashes on my computer, I did it shortly after I started playing when I first had the problem.

I don't have silverlight so this wouldn't explain the problem continuing for me.