Walking Dead PC Save Game Fix
 

Like many of you I have to run the game in administrator mode due to the launcher crashing when I start it. I did finally get access to my saves, although it required a bit of replaying. First, some info:
I have the steam copy of the game
I run the game in administrator mode but not in compatibility mode.
I tried the registry fix listed elsewhere but it did not grant me access to the saves. I haven't undone it though so it may be required, I can't say.

So I discovered that originally my saves were stored here:
C:\Users\Alan\Documents\Telltale Games\The Walking Dead
But now they are stored here:
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Telltale Games\the walking dead
Can't say if it's because of the registry editing or the administrator running. Problem is, the prefs.prop file tells the game at minimum what chapter you're up to, and I messed up my prop file during my various attempts to get my saves back.

What I ended up doing though was copying my brother's copy of prefs.prop from his computer to mine (in both locations just to be thorough). I also copied my saves over to the new location.

His stats appeared in the game menu but I was able to rewind episode 2 to the escape chapter and re-complete the episode from near the end. My choices up to that point were correct (my brother killed Larry, I tried to spare him so I know it worked) and now I think episode 3 should work for me with my choices. Once I completed episode 2 again the stats page was correctly updated, although my stats page for episode 1 still shows my brother's choices. I don't mind that though.

Hopefully this helps you guys. I attached my prefs.prop file so that you can use it to get the game to recognize your saves as well.

Note: Rewinding just one chapter made the game crash for me. I had to rewind to just after the meat locker scene, right before you take on the first brother.

Thanks for putting this up, it fixed my problem. Replayed only through the abandoned car part, and everything seems to be in place. Only thing I'm a little worried about, but which I think won't affect the game, are the stats on episode 1 saying I refused Irene the gun and saved Carley. Well, since Doug was with me through that last part, I'm gonna assume the game thinks I gave Irene the gun as well. So anyways, got back my save, gonna play episode 3 later, thank you again.

EDIT: Um, it actually affected the game. I was playing episode 3, talking to Lilly, and suddenly Carley appears behind me. Dammit. I think I'm just gonna replay the whole thing and try and pick all the same choices I made the first time. Oh well. At least my save reappeared, I just hope it doesn't happen again when episode 4 comes up =/

Where can I get the reg file so I can try your fix?

Alright apparently this fix will only maintain your choices from episode 2. The choices from episode 1 will match the choices in that prop file (you can see them if you go to stats after you drop the prop file in there). Maybe you can update episode 1 in the same way? I am not sure.

Thank you. This file fixed me up, playing Episode 3 now with all my decisions intact.

Ok, so I tried it again and rewound back to chapter 8 of episode 1, and although before I did that the stats said I refused Irene the gun and saved Carley, Glen acknowledged the fact I gave Irene the gun on my save and Doug was there instead of Carley. But of course, if you do that, you gotta play Episode 2 again, so apparently that only fixes part of the problem... but I guess that's still better than having to play the whole game again...and I don't really understand anything of computer programming and stuff, but, I don't know, isn't there a way to, like, rewind to episode 1, make a copy of the prop file, then replace the prop file with the one from here, and then rewind to chapter 2 and make a copy of the new prop file and, like, merge both copies so that it contains your choices from both episodes 1 and 2? Does that even make any sense? @_@

Oh let's not get ahead of ourselves FuckTelltale. Try quitting the game after you've passed a few "autosaves" (aka "autonotsaves") and then try to resume Episode 3 only to find all your progress is lost.

You'll have plenty of time to tell Telltale to fuck themselves while I'll continue telling them to "fix your shit".

I find it highly unsatisfying that Telltale have yet to come up with an official fix for this. I've had this problem since a few weeks after Ep. 2 was released, and just look at the many threads in their official support forum. It's a support forum.... Which Telltale apparantly do not use.

The fact that many users have EMAILED Telltale and gotten exactly zero response from them is rather disheartening aswell. As it stands, I think the game itself is superb but I will NOT buy anything from Telltale again with this kind of customer service and appreciation (or lack thereof).

It fixed the problem partially for me.

To fix it entirely I just launched episode 3 itself and it kept my choices (while it said it wanted to generate random choices... and since I kept doing it by myself, I know the choices are nothing but random and don't match my choices).

So yeah it makes no sense, but I could play it. I can't believe it.

Oh god now it kept looping into the last chapter of episode 2 over and over ...

What the fuck is wrong with them ?

Somehow it magically worked after launching the game in admin mode, started episode 3 normally, so far choices preserved and no crash.

Could someone please put a link to the prefs.prop file for a game that has completed episode 3. I had completed ep03 and now its not recognizing my saves for episode 3 in fact it says I don't have any progress at all. Whenever I seem to restart again the prefs.prop file seems to get wiped which causes me to lose progression in the game.

Ugh, I sat down one night to play through both Episode 1 and 2 to "fix" the lost saves I got when Episode 2 came out. Come Episode 3 same issue. Not sure when I'll have the effort to sit through all 3 + episodes at any given time. Took me 4 hours just to do the 2.

Sadly this didn't seem to help my issue. Seems my Episode 2 never got saved at all. :( I did some registry editing before when this issue occurred and it allowed me to at least save. Then I just uninstalled and re installed. Registry edit was pretty much mandatory to get the game to actually save properly. But seems it still doesn't want to work.

Such a shame though, I really enjoy the game. But this issue is just devastating to the philosophy of the way the game works.

You are my hero. Finally your pref.prop file helped. If I could, I would take the 30 dollars I paid TTG and give it to you. That being said, I will never buy anything from this company again. What a shame.

This is dogged lunacy. Seriously, good luck all you savvy bug fixers and workarounders, count me out. This is a superb game, but I don't have the extra 10-15 minutes to sit through gameplay I've already seen and create new save games and move this file to that folder and timestamp and jesus christ. It's unfortunate, because the slate of products coming out from Telltale is impressive and tantilizing, but I've had enough of the thorough horse shit. I'm not even going to try to play the rest of the WD episodes and I will never purchase another Telltale product. Sorry guys.

Just thought i'd say thanks to Meatsofevil for this prefs prop file. I was reluctant to install anything like Timestamp or mess around with registery edits.
I copied the prefs file over, booted up the game and thankfully my save game is there.

I must admit while I am pleased with this workaround, I can't help but feel a little annoyed that no genuine fix has been produced by Telltale.

This didn't work for me. I made the decision not to take the supplies from the car that was found on the road and when the game started its "previously on the walking dead" it showed me taking the supplies.

Oh well, thanks though.

this fing worked!!!!!! im not computer savy but when i pay for something i want the thing to work or get my money back. all you have to do is open the file, extract the file to location, pick where the "walkin dead" folder is under user. an drop it in, load up and play. thank you for posting this, now i can resume the my story!!! thanks so much

Savegame fix for Episode 4 - Delete the duplicate pref.props
 

I wanted to resume my save in Episode 4 but it was trying to make me resume from Episode 3 to a save game over a week before and coming up with a message about rewinding and losing my data!

I realised from this forum that duplicate save files had been made.

There's one prefs.prop stored in
C:\Steam\steamapps\common\the walking dead\Pack\default
and another prefs.prop in
C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\Telltale Games\The Walking Dead

I backed up both of them in another folder just in case, then I looked a the timestamps of each prefs.prop and deleted the older one, which was in the steam folder.

Hey presto it worked! All my decisions intact! Great game (/interactive film?) btw, wonder if the graphic novel's any good?

I Have 3 partitions in my hard drive. All I had to do is search each partition for the prefs.prop file and I found 2.. I had to choose which one to delete.. it seemed they were created at the same time. Both had save files in the same folder they were in however one of them only had 1 other save file so thats the one I chose to delete. The other had alot of save files with it. Games working fine now. start>computer><random drive>

I gave up and just played ep5 without any of my choices.
Totally ruined it for me.
Very disappointed in TellTale.
I'm not going to say I will never buy any of their games in the future, but I will certainly not be going out of my way to support them, as I feel like they have not supported me.