<font color=lightblue>I have a problem with playing Baldur's Gate II on my home desktop PC. Basically, I had installed it about 2 years ago but later decided to uninstall it for a while (<font color=white>BIG mistake that I am truly regretting now</font>).

Now that I want to reinstall it and replay it, this is what I face...

1) When I go to Control Panel, followed by Add/Remove Programs, I see the following

Baldur's Gate(TM)II - Shadows of Amn(TM)

I highlight this and press the Add/Remove button. To the question "Do you want to completely remove the selected application and all of its components?" question, I press "OK".

InstallShield Wizard pops up and supposedly removes the program. <font color=white>However, the Baldur's Gate (TM)II-Shadows of Amn(TM) item still remains in the reloaded Add/Remove Programs list :( </font>

2) I now decide to try playing the game instead, since the computer insists that it is still there. I load the CD rom and in the opening screen, I see the option to <font color=white>PLAY</font>, not INSTALL.

So, I click PLAY and receive this message:

"Since this is the first time you are running Baldur's Gate II, please take a moment to configure the game. Once you have your settings the way you want, click 'OK' to save your changes and the game will launch."

I click <font color=white>OK</font>, the screen disappears and nothing happens [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img]

3) I load CD rom again and this time, I click on <font color=white>CONFIGURE</font> instead. Nothing happens despite my repeated clicks, so I <font color=white>EXIT</font> in despair :mad:

4) Last try. This time, I go straight to my D drive (where the CD rom is) and double-click the <font color=white>Setup</font> file. InstallShield Wizard pops up and I receive the following message:

"Do you want to completely remove the selected application and all of its components?"

I click <font color=white>OK</font>, the program seems to run and the pop-up screen disappears.

When I retry the Setup file again, the same message appears! [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img] </font>

<font color=gold>To summarise, I think my computer is confused as to whether or not it has BGII installed in it or not.

Please, if anyone knows how I can get rid of this mess, please let me know how to do so. Otherwise, I would have to wait for about another year before I get to play BG2 again, since that is when I would likely upgrade my PC... </font> [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]

Look like when you uninstalled the game last year you either did it wrong or the program messed up.

The registry files are still there, and need to be removed. You could manually remove them, but I don't suggest it. The best solution would be to get a registry cleaner program.

Thanks, Luvian, for the quick response.

Are there any side effects to installing a registry cleaner (for example, would it delete some files that may be required for running some other program)?

Do you also have any examples of reliable software available?

I have a progam called "RegCleaner". I don't remember where I got it, but I remember it was free.

All the registry cleaner programs I have seen ask before deleting anything from your registry, so it's safe. You could probably find one at download.com

<font color=lightgreen>
This is by far one of *the* most annoying bugs to date. I can't believe such good programmers wouldn't make it possible to simply install the game over the existing installation/reg-files. Every other game can do it? Why not BGII?
</font>

I had this problem once. Have you tried not using the autorun, but going straight to the CD and selecting the SETUP application there?

Sorry, didn't read your whole post but it does sound like the registry keys are still there. What I suggest you do is run regedit by going to start->run . Do a search for all keys containing values like "Baldurs" and things like that and delete all those keys. You should be able to install after that. This is how I fixed it when I had this problem.

this happens a lot. There are two ways to deal with it. Either the registry way or by clicking open on the drive u use to play it on instead of clicking play and then manually clicking on the installer. This should work.

i had a similiar problem aswell, but i had an uninstaller program(which is actually called "Uninstaller"), so it took care of it for me. what you could do is do as Vaskez instructed and then manually delete all the remaining files from the bg2 folder, if there are any left.

I think the manual install is by far the easiest and the least risky way.
I'm never overly fond of mass-deleting any kind of files.

<font color=lightblue>Hey everyone, I really appreciate your suggestions [img]smile.gif[/img] I am giving an update on my further attempts here...</font>

<font color=lightblue> I did a search and a number of baldur files did pop up. I deleted them and even my saved BGII games... unfortunately, <font color=white>it still does not work</font>.

I am going to do a search from download.com as Luvian suggests. After which, I think I just have to accept the sad fact that I am in for a long wait... :( </font>

You did a search and baldur files popped up? Do you mean files or registry keys? It's no good just deleting the files, you have to delete the registry keys. So you ran regedit, went to Edit->find , typed in Baldur and then kept pressing F3 deleting every registry key that contained a string Baldur?

Anyway, at the very worst, you can always reinstall windows and that would definitely solve your problem so you don't have to wait. Just back up all important files on CD or another partition and reformat your windows partition and then boot from the windows setup CD.

[ 10-04-2003, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

did u try the other way? I think that could work

OK as already stated in the thread it probably is some registry keys still present in your registry. I would suggest that you download Regleaner 4.3, this is the free version. Install it, duh :D , and check the software tab (selected at start up). Remove all Baldur's gate references you find, perhaps also the Bioware references. After that the registry should be clean and you should be able to install the game.

<font color=lightblue>It is now about 1.20 am and I am completely zonked out from a PnP game last evening, as well as all that desperate tidying of the mess.

But... I am so <font color=gold>HAPPY</font>, cos it <font color=gold>ACTUALLY WORKED</font>!!!!

[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

I almost cannot believe it actually worked... I had agonised over this for more than 8 months. You wonderful folks have no idea how happy you have made me with your kind advice and patience!

Too bad it is late now, or I would start swinging my blade about and wipe out Irenicus' Chateau with vengeance! :D

Anyway, <font color=white>THANK YOU EVERYONE</font>, your helpfulness has once again shown that IW is the best place to hang around [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] </font>