2 hours ago, Ken Hall said:

Have spent the last three days trying to install RC4 which was fraught with issues all the way - installing from the free download files.......again and again and again......just would not start...😣

Issues now resolved by installing from my original disk ~~~ my conclusion would be that there is a fault/error in the download itself but without downloading again no way to check!

A note to 'staff'...the installed RC4 still required activation/registration so there is still a need for the 'encryption' file that comes as part of the download.

I have saved my encryption file to a 'safe place' and just dumped the main RC4 folder.

Perhaps the encryption file should be available separately (unless I missed that it is).

Ken 😉

Ken, I downloaded the supplied zip and installed it to my Win 10 Pro computer and it ran without issue up to the point where I tried to load a flight plam and it complained about the missing DLL. But that is way beyond the point SkyyStorm had got.

Logically, if there was a problem with the download then it would affect all users of Windows 10 but it doesn't.

The key generator is a separate download. It appears in note 2 in JD's post.

I'm at wit's end. I've now tried everything I can think of to get it running on my machine, and alas it was to no avail. I really wish I could use RC, it sounds amazing, but alas, it is not to be.

Oh, and thanks for all the help, Ray, much appreciated!

If I do ever get it running somehow, I'll let you guys know.

@SkyyStorm, I hate being defeated on something like this but unless I can sit in front of your PC it's very difficult to investigate the problem.

Keep trying after every Windows update.

Ray,

I agree with you, I hate it as well. Just to be sure, I downloaded and re-installed on my W10 Home PC and, as with you it all worked up to the usual missing file story.😞

@SkyyStorm, one thing we haven't discussed yet is Safe Mode. I've just tried it without Network option and RC4 opened fine. Perhaps you could try that and see if there's any change.

That would help narrow the problem down. Ian, I imagine safe mode would also work for you.

@Ray Proudfoot I actually did try safemode, and it still didn't work. I suppose this implies I am missing something, rather than something is preventing it from working?

53 minutes ago, SkyyStorm said:

@Ray Proudfoot I actually did try safemode, and it still didn't work. I suppose this implies I am missing something, rather than something is preventing it from working?

Probably but finding what it is is difficult. I suppose if you google "Visual Basic program won't run in safe mode" it might give you some pointers.

I’ve posted on the Windows 10 forum here in AvSim about this problem. Maybe there is an expert who can suggest something we’ve overlooked.

 

So, small update. Today, I asked my colleague to help me look at the issue. He also installed RC on his pc, and it also worked without issue.

However, after several tests, we might have come upon something.

The application appears to have some from of debug protection built in. Whenever we attach a debugger (to try and catch the exception), we actually get an exception, which is an overflow in the kernelbase library of Windows. It loops on something over and over until it overflows (assumedly, there is a loop before it closes). 

Using process monitor, I can see that if I debug the exe on my work computer, the behavior and subsequent closure occurs the same way as it does on my pc, and if I don't, it runs fine on my work computer. 

--

So, if the above analysis is correct, it would mean that something on my home computer is causing RC4 to think its being debugged or modified, and subsequently except and exit. I'm trying to figure out what it is. Thus far I've been unsuccessful, but I'll try to close every single process and service that might have some form of debugging effects, and see if I can get it to run.

@SkyyStorm, good work. Given you’ve already tried and failed to run RC4 in Safe Mode there can’t be too many processes left. Hope you find it. It does appear to be something unique to your computer.

For what it's worth I installed RC4 from the download files on my W10 machine and it all ran smoothly. I am using a locked old build of W10, 1607 from memory. Way before the gamey updates came along. 

You guys will never, ever believe what caused my RC to not run... (tl;dr below)

I was trying to fix another issue I had. My problem was that when I load a flight plan from any source (saved in FSX, or LNM, or even Simbrief), FSX would load it, but all the waypoints would have coordinates of 0 0. So I couldn't load any custom flight plans.

So I looked around my files, opened the Flight plan files, etc, and tried to find out why it doesn't work. I happen to see that when I try to open a FSX flightplan in LNM, I get an error related to the coordinates. Weird. So I compared a LNM flight plan file with a FSX file, and noticed that the 'degrees' symbol in the LNM file was a 'question mark' in the FSX file. 

Soooooo, I wondered, what would cause FSX to write the file with a question mark instead of the degrees symbol. 

And I remembered something that does make my home pc unique, and that is long ago I changed the non-unicode program language (the special character one) to Chinese for an earlier application. 

Quick internet searches made me found out that the UTF-8 character set is necessary to display the degrees symbol. So I switched the non-Unicode language back to US english to fix the flight plan issue. 

I randomly tried RC... and it worked!? It's the dumbest reason ever, but whatever, now I can finally try Radar Control out. (Ironically I started flying on Vatsim, but I'll still try RC for some offline flying). So much debugging and internet research, and it was something stupid.

tl;dr - RC appears to have thrown an error of some kind because the non-Unicode program language on my pc was set to Chinese instead of English. Switching it to English allowed me to run Radar Control.

@SkyyStorm, I’m pleased the problem is resolved but I’m surprised it stopped RC from running as soon as it’s launched.

I could understand it happening when attempting to load a flight plan but not earlier. Still, all’s well that ends well.

Edited March 25, 20197 yr by Ray Proudfoot

My theory is that during the startup procedures, it sends some kind of unicode character to the kernel libraries of Windows, which is incorrectly interpreted because of the Chinese language setting, and then causes an exception. What that might be, we may never know.

But oh well, it works now, so I'm happy.

@skyystorm: the solution of your problem sounds as strange as the problem itself.
Readers of this thread may remember a post of mine (March 9) where I refer to exactly the same problem I described already I a post October 16, 2018. Because I didn't find a solution (neither could JD) I switched to W7 for flightsimming and all is well.

On my w10 system, however, the problem persists. My "Default app language, Windows display language" is English (US). 

Could you please explain how you "switched the non-Unicode language back to US English"?