FYI, .NET is not backwards-compatible, so if it was a .NET problem, you'd be better off installing .NET 1.x and/or 2.x. However, from the look of things, .NET was released some time after the game came out.

There's probably some missing DLL or another - maybe one of the Visual C++ runtimes, perhaps. Process Monitor or Dependency Walker might help you get to the source.

Jorpho wrote:

There's probably some missing DLL or another - maybe one of the Visual C++ runtimes, perhaps. Process Monitor or Dependency Walker might help you get to the source.

This will be your problem.

Yeah I'll give VisualC+ stuff a look. The fresh install has C+ 2005/2008/2010/2012 but nothing earlier.

I always install Visual Basics 6 on my retro rigs and will give that a shot to see if it's related.

EDIT: Adding VB6 had no effect. Will go through the C+ sequence next since I only have a crisp up to date v4.5 at the moment.

No luck so far with runtimes. But it'll run in software mode - might this suggest a video driver issue?

EDIT: found a Mig error log in the root drive:

File does not exist for reading(8c00=D:\AIR\MIG\landscap\DIR.DIR).
File does not exist for reading(7100=D:\AIR\MIG\ir\MIG\text\DIR.DIR).
File does not exist for reading(c800=G:\smacker\DIR.DIR).
T:\mig\SRC\hardware\..\HARDWARE\Ddrwinit.cpp line 686 :
Failed to find Direct Draw modes!

If those don't correspond to any of the drives or directories that you are actually using, it's probably just leftover bits of debug code and not worth worrying about.

Did you not try Dependency Walker yet?

Also, have you installed DirectX 9? Apparently you need to do that in Windows 7.

I just DLd Dependency Walker and need to figure out how to use it - so the answer in no.
My install notes indicate I installed Dx90c but I'll try again with the hopes I may have missed it...

Just to check, I rolled back to an image of my pre-fresh W7 install just to make sure Mig Alley *had* been running before. No dice - hmmm. What probably happened is sometime in the last 6-7 months some combination of of hardware upgrades/drivers/updates/C++/VB etc., broke the game.

My game notes from end of last year say it ran fine with compatibility set to XP. But at that time I was running Radeon 5770s CF [now a 7850], and an AMD 555be [now 8350]. I've upgraded the Catalyst drivers at least 2 or 3 times since then so it's entirely possible one of the versions didn't play nice with MA.

Too many people report MA running fine on W7 64-bit for it to be strictly OS related [no one here has said that it was either], but after it failed on a minty fresh W7 reinstall I'm leaning towards a driver conflict, given that it had ran in the past.

Mystery solved: Catalyst 13.4 and 13.8 beta 2 break Mig Alley [at least with my rig/configuration]. 13.1 runs fine.
I'm curious to know if the breakage can be tweaked out with a setting or if it's baked into the new driver releases.

EDIT: In case anyone follows this, I discovered the cause by rolling back to a 6 month old image [thank god for image tools - make things like this sooo easy]. Only real software difference I could find was the AMD drivers: i.e., C++/VB/DotNet/Dx seemed identical. So restored my fresh install, un-installed 13.8 and re-installed 13.1, et voila.

tincup wrote:

I tried the usual: various compatibility settings, single core affinity, different desktop resolutions, and a fresh install MA->patch v123->BGD v085F. Reinstalled DotNet4.5 for good measure. No dice.

Reinstalling your .NET framework would probably have little effect on an MFC error. The Microsoft Foundation Class was a library for C++. .NET is for managed code. While there is managed C++, Mig Alley predates it. It also predates the first release of .NET 1.0.

well Collector, like I said, rolling back on the video drivers to 13.1 got it going so you are right on that score. But I suspected as much which is why I rolled back my installs until I found the point Mig Alley started running again - which was the the change from 13.1 to 13.4/13.8.

This is the main reason I build retro rigs! It's so much easier...