First post, by boxpressed
- Rank
- Oldbie
Back in 2004 or 2005, I purchased the Half Life 2 Collector's Edition at retail. I didn't install it until 2011. I remember being surprised that I needed to set up a Steam account in order to play the game (I was behind the times with regard to DRM). Eventually, I got it up and running but never really played it. I then took a decade-long hiatus from computer games.
Yesterday, I tried to install HL2 again on my recently-acquired "late-XP" build, an AMD Phenom II X4 940 with a Geforce 9800GT. My install of XP Home SP2 was almost completely fresh: just mobo drivers, wireless keyboard/mouse drivers, Forceware 178.24, Wireless 802.11G driver, Doom 3, and Far Cry.
I was torn installing Steam because I wanted this build to not connect to the Internet at all (I only did once -- to activate XP). But I really wanted to play HL2, so I did the full install.
Well, Steam tried to update itself from its 2004 version. It seemed to stall and take a long time. Eventually, it did update because the splash screen changed. However, about ten seconds after XP loaded, the computer would spontaneously reboot. It cycled through this sequence a few times before I reimaged the drive.
Does anyone have experience with loading Steam on a XP SP2-era install? Would updating to SP3 make a difference? Or adding NET Framework 4? Maybe install Steam from the Steam website before trying to install HL2 from the DVD?
I do have a Steam account that recognizes my HL2 purchase. Appreciate any advice.