Steam installs .NET Framework every start-up

[Stardragon]

I bought AI War sight unseen, since I'm a great fan of RTS games in general and particularly those in the style of MOO2. I was intending to play the demo, but since I couldn't get it to install and since the price was so reasonable I thought, "What the heck," and bought it.

My main source of frustration is that every time I start the game it insists on installing the .NET Framework package. I tend to play games for an hour or so at a stretch, so over the course of a day I might play three or four times. That's three or four installs, each taking several minutes and each increasing my annoyance level with the game in general.

I love RTS games and I have a real soft spot for indie games. (I'm a developer myself.) I don't want to fall out with this game but to be honest I'm fast approaching the point when I can't be bothered to wait for it to install stuff again.

[x4000]

Hi Stardragon,

Thanks for the note -- I can see why that would be frustrating, for sure.  In this case, it is Steam that is installing this every time, not the game itself.  For whatever reason, I think that your .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is actually failing, or else Steam would stop doing that.  The game technically can run on regular .NET Frameowork 3.5, and if you already had that installed (as a developer yourself), then that would explain why the game functions, but Steam keeps trying to install SP1.

It's a known issue with Microsoft that sometimes the web-based installer for 3.5 and 3.5 SP1 won't install properly, but their full version will.  There are instructions on that here, and they should resolve your issues:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,26.0.html

Thanks for your support, and sorry to hear of your troubles!

Best,
Chris

[Stardragon]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your prompt and kind reply. I also offer an apology to you and the game for mis-targeting my annoyance

I have tried doing what you suggest but without success. The .NET installer to which that forum post links downloads, but when run it crashes out with an error. Just out of curiosity I checked my Control Panel and it lists .NET Frameworks 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 SP1 all fully installed. However, when I attempt to run the game Steam tries to install SP1 yet again.

Oh well. I guess I'm the fortunate one in that I can launch the game and then I can go and make a coffee while Steam does its thing

[x4000]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your prompt and kind reply. I also offer an apology to you and the game for mis-targeting my annoyance

I have tried doing what you suggest but without success. The .NET installer to which that forum post links downloads, but when run it crashes out with an error. Just out of curiosity I checked my Control Panel and it lists .NET Frameworks 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 SP1 all fully installed. However, when I attempt to run the game Steam tries to install SP1 yet again.

Oh well. I guess I'm the fortunate one in that I can launch the game and then I can go and make a coffee while Steam does its thing

That was the full installer with which it crashes?  The 300MB+ one?  Man, that's a new one for me, if so.  It's usually their web-based one that will crash for a subset of users.  Grr, that's kind of frustrating.

Here's a workaround for you, and this one will definitely work.  Basically, it's a way to trick the game into thinking it was launched via Steam, even though it was not.  Caveat:  the Steam client still has to be running, and you must be logged into an account that has access to AI War to run it -- so for anyone else following along, this can't be used for any form of copy protection circumvention or anything like this.  All it bypasses is the actual starting launch from Steam, which is what does things like triggering the prerequisites install and alerting you as to your AI War license key, etc.  So unless you have the prerequisites problem, this isn't worth doing.

This is pretty easy:
1. Go to the AI War folder in the Steam folder.  In my case, it's: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ai war fleet command\

2. Create a new text document called steam_appid.txt with a single line of text reading "40400" (no quotes).

3. Run the game from outside Steam, and the game will hook into Steam as if you had run it from there, but it should skip the prerequisites.  Your achievements, leaderboards, etc, will still work as normal.  And again, if you don't have the Steam client running or it logged in to an account with appropriate access, this will fail.

That should do it for you, I think.   Thanks for your support!

[Stardragon]

That works perfectly. Thank you!

[x4000]

No problem!

[Minotaur]

I have the same problem too, but it seems a pure Steam problem. I get the "Performing first time setup..." window each time I start the game with Steam...

Also, I tried the steam_appid.txt trick, but all I get is a poping window telling me "This game must be lauched from Steam! InitSteam Failed!"...


I downloaded the demo then used the Steam Cd-key (read that from another post) to unlock it and it seems to work fine (program starts, accept the Key I copied and show me the menu, but I didn't start a game yet...)

Well, at least I can play solo, but all my gaming friends are on Steam, so I hope they will fix this soon...

By the way, thanks for the quick answers (here and on Steam forum) to people having problems. It's refreshing to see a business that actually care about its customers... 

[x4000]

Hey Minotaur,

If you're getting the InitSteam failure like that, then most likely the steam_appid.txt isn't set up quite right, or the steam client isn't running, or isn't in online mode with an account that has the full game installed.  That's kind of odd that that wouldn't work, but you might try letting it go all the way through the install process one more time, and then see if the steam_app.txt trick works.  Also -- depending on your OS version, you might want to be careful that windows isn't "hiding extensions of known file types," and thus creating something that you think is steam_appid.txt, but which is really steam_appid.txt.txt.  I've had that happen before.

On the bright side, you can play multiplayer just fine with friends who are on Steam, even if you don't have a Steam copy of the game running -- all of the copies of the game from any retailer, as long as they are the same version (2.0) are cross-compatible for MP.  The things you lose out on with it not being hooked into Steam are the Steam Achievements and the Steam Leaderboards, but that's it.

Hope that helps!  We're always glad to be of service.

[Fiskbit]

I feel it worth pointing out that every time I run AI War from Steam, it runs first-time setup for SlimDX. Luckily, it's quick, but still irritating. I'll give the steam_appid.txt fix a try in a bit.

[Slothsberry]

does the steam_appid.txt fix need a non-steam install of AI wars, or will the shortcut that steam drops on my desktop work? the shortcut target is ""C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe" -applaunch 40400", which leads me to believe that the .txt file is correct. however, on launch it still tells me the registration key, and goes through the .NET install.

I absolutely love the game btw.

[x4000]

For this, you can't use the Steam desktop shortcut, because that is routing it through Steam.  You have to follow the instructions from above, and then launch the game directly from that folder.  You can make a shortcut to that folder directly (just right-click and drag the icon to the desktop from that folder), but that's the only way to launch a Steam-integrated version of the game without actually launching the prerequisites check within Steam itself.

I've also made Valve aware of this issue, and so we'll see what happens.  I don't experience this issue myself, and a number of others seem not to, but it is certainly affecting a fair number of people at the least.

Thanks for your support, and I'm glad you're enjoying the game so much!

[Volatar]

I will mention that I have this same problem with the demo of AI War on Steam.

EDIT: And with the full version also. Thanks for the workaround Chris 

[Inglonias]

Same here, although I let the .NET thing install, and that part went away. The SlimDX thing is the issue for me.

[Inglonias]

Whats going on in regards to this issue?

[x4000]

No resolution yet, but I just checked in with Valve to see how it's going.  I'll let you know as soon as I know anything, but thanks for checking in, and your patience.