Can't save progress in Monkey Island episode 1 - UAC is disabled

[Nebu]

It's not only save games, but also my preferences (screen resolution, whether or not subtitles are turned on, etc.) which are not saved.

UAC is disabled, and I am running from an admin account.

[jmm]

Ok, UAC being disabled is the culprit.
If it is enabled, it works behind the installer translating paths (and registry keys) that you don't have regular access (even as an admin on Vista/W7*)

Short and easy way to solve this: enable temporarily UAC and run the installer

[Nebu]

You mean I should uninstall the game, enable UAC, install the game, and then I can disable UAC again and play normally?

[Tyraa Rane]

Originally Posted by jmm

Ok, UAC being disabled is the culprit.

Shenanigans. I have UAC disabled on my Vista admin account, and have had for quite some time now. No problems installing the game, saving, or saving preferences.

Nebu, where do you have the game installed? In the default Program Files, or elsewhere? I know other games (Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, specifically; others on hearsay) do have difficulties with save games if they're installed to the default Program Files folder. Try reinstalling the game elsewhere (say, C:\Games\Telltale).

[Nebu]

It's probably installed in the default location (Program Files), since I don't remember ever specifying where to install it. I'll try both of your solutions later tonight.

[Smegbot]

I have the same issue, and I believe I know a possible cause.

The location the save files are stored in (on Vista) is Users\<name>\Documents\<...> which doesn't exist on my machine - the Documents folder is repointed to my E drive. This, I suspect, is what causes no gameplay or settings to save.

Unreal Tournament has the same issue, with it being resolved by providing a "-nohomedir" command line flag (or similar, I can't recall if that's the exact command) which saves all preferences, etc. to the install directory.

A possible cause for Telltale QA to look at...(if they're listening)...

[Faniel]

I had the same problem on my Vista64 system.

My Documents folder is set into another location than the default one (\Users\<username>\documents). Many others game that use Documents system folder has no problem at all writing savegames and settings into the new location, but TOMI does. I had to move Documents folder to default position in order to play the game.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Faniel

I had to move Documents folder to default position in order to play the game.

Have you tried just linking to it instead?

[Faniel]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

Have you tried just linking to it instead?

I've tied and the result is the same. Seems like the game is not writings any saves/prefs unless the documents folder is the default one.

[Seg]

It's pretty clear that changing the default Documents location in Vista on up is broken. What I need from everyone is the EXACT steps you took to change the folder location. This allows us to have reproduction steps in fixing this bug.

[Nebu]

I'm not sure I can remember the exact steps in changing the path of the "Document" folder, since this was done a long time ago (when I first installed Vista), but I suspect this is how I did it, since this is how I would do it today:

1. Click on the Start button
2. Right click on the "Document" entry, which should be right below your user name.
3. Select "Properties" from the pop up menu.
4. Go to the "Location" tab.
5. Enter a new location.
6. Click the "Move" button.

Here's where things get a bit fuzzy: It'll probably ask you whether you want to move whatever is currently in your documents folder to the new location. I think I said "yes", but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Another thing to note is that it seems everyone who is affected with this bug has moved their location to a different drive (I've set my location to "D:\"). Perhaps saving works fine if the location is on the same drive (i.e. "C:\"), but it fails when it's on a different drive?

[fox2319]

Originally Posted by Nebu

Another thing to note is that it seems everyone who is affected with this bug has moved their location to a different drive (I've set my location to "D:\"). Perhaps saving works fine if the location is on the same drive (i.e. "C:\"), but it fails when it's on a different drive?

Is there any resolution to this yet? I bought the game and want to play it but can't due to this bug. It is seriously annoying and puts me off buying other similar games from TT in future.

[KevSteele]

I just tried a few experiments -- changing my Documents folder back to the default location (C:\Users\Username\Documents) allows me to save my settings and my game. However, if I then change my Documents folder back to where I normally have it pointing (D:\), the game fails to find or save my games and settings.

HOWEVER, if I set my Documents folder to an actual folder on the D: drive (say, D:\Documents) the game can once again find my settings and save games.

It seems, at least in my case, that the problem is the Documents folder being a root folder. None of my other games currently have this problem, but Mass Effect did originally, before they fixed it with a patch.

[KevSteele]

Any news on this problem? Any hope of a fix?

[Seg]

After researching the problem for a few weeks, I'm afraid there isn't a fix due to a bug in Windows Vista.

The Details - Short Explanation

The Windows OS function call available to get the location of the Documents folder returns a "NULL" when the Documents folder is set to the root of a drive. There is no other way Microsoft gives us to find the location of your documents folder under this condition.

Currently the only fix is the same as before: You can't have Documents at the root of a drive. Any application that refers to the Documents folder without using the Open/Save window will not work when documents are at the root of a drive.

The Details - Developer (Longer) version

In order to get the location of the Documents folder, the engine calls the function SHGetFolderPath() with the target of CSIDL_PERSONAL. This function works from Windows XP and above, even though from Vista on up the preference is to use the newer SHGetKnownFolderPath().

As first the speculation was something with SHGetFolderPath() wasn't catching the location change. When engineering did tests, they discovered both functions still returned "NULL" when the Documents folder was set to the root of a drive. When the location wasn't root, everything worked as expected. How it is that your Windows OS open/save dialog box works yet SHGetFolderPath()/SHGetKnownFolderPath() doesn't is beyond logic, but that's the situation. Maybe it's a security "feature", even with UAC turned off.

If anyone out there has a contact with Microsoft related to this issue, please put them in touch with me.

[KevSteele]

Thanks for the reply. I know the BioWare guys had the exact same problem, and they managed to find a workaround -- not sure how, but perhaps some sort of kludge to find the setting if the regular function returns NULL?

I wonder if it's been fixed in Win7 -- if so, my problem will go away in a few months.

[Smegbot]

Assuming Microsoft don't have a fix for this issue (not to be pessimistic but if Epic and BioWare both have had to use workarounds in their titles...) would a workaround be possible?

Something like using CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA when the path for CSIDL_PERSONAL comes back as NULL possibly?

[KevSteele]

Any progress on getting this fixed?

[Seg]

Do I have some good news for you all! MonkeyIsland103 has the fix! Chapters 3, 4, and 5 should have the fix moving forward.

As for the previous episodes, it will have to wait till we go back for the DVD disc when update plans are figured out.

[KevSteele]

Is there no way to roll out a patch or an update via Steam?