VOGONS


First post, by Sagadali523

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I just finished the original game and for my first attempt is when I have the Athena Sword expansion pack disc inserted on my modern PC, the only problem I received is that it says it failed to load a DLL file
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The original game was installed with no issues appeared, I only gave the official patch (1.60) to the game. So in the first glance, the expansion pack does not seems working when I launch the setup, from what I simply learned is that it wants core DLLs and a Ravenshield.exe file, well it's already there in the main folder, but I don't know much about it. The original isn't gold edition, both the base game and the expansion pack are just US versions. I had to give the setup.exe a compability to set it to Windows XP SP3, but that nothing worked. Anything else to deal with this problem?

Reply 2 of 12, by Matth79

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Not sure if a NOCD patch would fix it, if it's the protection that is fouling up... and it's a touchy subject here so you'll have to find it yourself

Reply 3 of 12, by Sagadali523

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Actually, the NOCD patch is just for original game of the Raven Shield and I already installed that, but because it has nothing to do with the base game, the expansion pack is just getting complicated for no reason. Still need some help

Reply 5 of 12, by Sagadali523

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eddman wrote on 2025-07-17, 21:19:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/SafeDisc#Re … afeDisc_support

If those don't work either, then you might need to use, say, windows 7 but not fully updated. Might work in a VM.

Both of them didn't work for me sadly, and I just had to copy the expansion pack disc 1 installer inside of my hard drive then I clicked a setup.exe, but instead, it closes itself rather than giving me an DLL error message, I got a log file as well

"[2025-07-18 01:30:11.236] [info] SafeDiscShim version 0.1.1

[2025-07-18 01:30:11.252] [info] Cleanup.exe detected, relaunching game and injecting

[2025-07-18 01:30:11.253] [info] Relaunching main game process
[2025-07-18 01:30:11.253] [trace] hooked CreateProcessW called
[2025-07-18 01:30:11.253] [info] Main game process relaunched; exiting cleanup.exe"

Am I really this close or is this still broken?

Reply 6 of 12, by eddman

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I see SafeDiscShim messages there. In case it's not obvious, you do not mix the two. If you restore the safedisc driver then don't use SafeDiscShim.

Restoring safedisc on windows should work if it's the original game disc. Also the expansion might not install on top of the Nocd exe.

I'd personally just try windows 7 in a VM. No need to mess with the host windows 10.

Reply 7 of 12, by Sagadali523

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Did it actually work for you on your VM? It took me a bunch of hours to install Windows 7 on Virtualbox and installed SafeDiscShim, the setup closes itself, the same thing as the host

Reply 8 of 12, by eddman

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Why are you installing SafeDiscShim on windows 7? Read the pcgamingwiki article.

I don't have the athena sword disc. Other safedisc games work in a win 7 VM. I use VMware though.

Reply 9 of 12, by Sagadali523

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Okay, sorry, I did read the PCGamingWiki article again to do what I should do, but the driver signature enforcement methods - either of them didn't work for me when the setup closes itself on Windows 10 than the guest one (Windows 7). I had to do both of the methods for some reason and I also got this "Test mode" text reveals the version of my Windows from the bottom right corner. I'm confused or just doing it wrong at the same time

In some situations, that Athena Sword disc is just an expansion pack requires an original game, so, do you know any other idea to deal with this SafeDisc problem?

Reply 10 of 12, by eddman

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Read the part about pre-windows 10. Honestly it's very clear. You do NOT install any safedisc fix on windows 7, if you do not update windows 7.
Do not update windows 7 after installing it in the VM.

Just install the base game and then the expansion.

The expansion's installer requires a functioning safedisc, so besides the mentioned methods, there's no other way

If it's too much of a hassle, just buy the Complete edition DVD of the game, and if you don't care about having a disc, get it on steam or epic store.

Reply 11 of 12, by Sagadali523

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Good god, the complete edition actually works! It's an Europe-based, but it's not the re-release one, and it comes up with the official patch as well, I can directly play the expansion pack as well.

Thank you so much, eddman, god bless you

Reply 12 of 12, by eddman

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You seem to not actually have the Athena disc then and were trying to install from an image, which won't work.

EDIT: Based on your past threads, you probably downloaded it.