Like many old PC games, the game comes with an activation-code on the back of the case. The installer asks me for the 25 digit code on the case. I look, and I can see that the code definitely contains 25 digits. But than when I try to input the 25 digit code into the 5 text boxes provided (5 digits per box) only 4 digits can be inputted into any of the text-boxes, meaning I can only input a max of 20 characters through all the boxes, and the installation fails. Does anyone know how to get around this? Thanks.

Update: With a suggestion from within the comments, I managed to solve the issue by installing Microsoft Core Fonts using the command winetricks corefonts. Once corefonts was installed, I can now input all 5 digits into each text box.

That fixes the text box issue. Now I can’t play the game because after inserting Disc 2 to begin the next part of the installation, I get the ‘feature transfer error’, as the window calls it: “Error: -1603 Fatal error during installation. Consult Windows Installer Help (Msi.chm) or MSDN for more information.”

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    can you work around this by copy/pasting maybe all 25 characters at once or maybe each segment at a time?

    • alternative: install somewhere else (windows pc or VM) and copy the install dir contents and registry
    • alternative 2: get the steam version, I just tried it with proton experimental and it seems to work fine.

    edit: steam lets me choose the base game, war chiefs or asian dynasties, AD and WC work without a problem but the base game asks for a key and I can also just input 4 characters instead of 5. but I’d always play with all expansions

    • @[email protected]OP
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      110 months ago

      can you work around this by copy/pasting maybe all 25 characters at once or maybe each segment at a time?

      I tried that already and it didn’t work.

      Thanks for helping; I still have at least one roadblock stopping me from installing but I managed to solve the text-box issue by installing Microsoft Core Fonts with the command winetricks corefonts