PROBLEM During installation of .NET 3.5 SP1 (as part of the game installation process), the progress bar gets to be full and then just sits there forever.
FIRST THING TO CHECKAre you killing it before it has a chance to finish? I've noticed that on some systems, usually XP SP3 and sometimes Vista versions, it can take around an hour when it sits there like that. I don't know what MS is doing, but it's crazy. You might try just leaving it while you eat dinner or sleep or something, and see if it eventually finishes. If that doesn't work, or you don't want to try waiting, then try one of the solutions below. Don't bother waiting more than an hour or two, as past that point it's probably not going to work.
THE ISSUE, IF THE ABOVE DOES NOT WORKThe version of the .NET Framework 3.5 that is being installed by the AI War Setup is the web-based SP1 version (it's a much smaller download for you, because it only downloads the version for your specific OS instead of every version for every OS -- makes it more like 40 megs instead of 300).
According to
this post on the MS support boards, it looks like on a minority of machines, there might be issues with the web-based SP1 version. There are two options that usually will work.
OPTION AThe best option would be to download the full, giant version of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and install that. Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&displaylang=enOnce on the MS page, scroll down until you see a link called ".NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (Full Package)" It's about 3/4 of the way down the page. That's a big download, but supposedly if the MS support guys are right, it should install fine.
OPTION BIf for some strange reason windows still won't install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, you can try the original release .NET Framework 3.5. The game is technically compatible with either, but some minor performance improvements in 3.5 SP1 are worthwhile if that version works for you. If not, don't sweat it, the regular 3.5 version should be ok. Throughout all our alpha testing, we had one tester on regular 3.5 and the rest on 3.5 SP1, and there was only a minor difference.
However, if you play multiplayer with others, having everyone on the same version of .NET is important -- otherwise, desyncs that are out of our control can occur with the game.Here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=333325FD-AE52-4E35-B531-508D977D32A6&displaylang=en Same deal, scroll down and find the ".NET Framework 3.5 full package" link to be on the safe side, unless you want to give their web installer another go.
