This is the first game I've gotten around to playing from GoG.com.

I've picked at it twice. The last time I figured out some custom controls I could suffer with. And saved my game in the tutorial.

But now all of my settings, visuals, and controls are lost. I envy all of the threads that say "stuck in windowed mode". I would frankly love that as a start (what a nightmare.) Because I just realized that every time I exited the game it's behaved as if nothing I did took the next time I started it back up.

I thought the first few times I just shut down wrong. But it seems like nothing works. Any settings are lost on exit. Controls may be in the game save files, but just the whole 640x480 dedicated fullscreen on start is enough to make me not want to bother.

How can I make this go away? Etc. Thanks.

Is the game installed to "Program Files"? If it is then uninstall it and install to C:\Games or wherever.

It was never installed in Program Files. But I did move it after installing it (I had put it on a drive that is backed up nightly and thought afterward that it wasn't worth backing up. Edited: I removed the shortcuts from the Start menu, and redirected the Launch shortcut in the top-level folder.)

I really can't be bothered with re-installing. But if someone knows why the program can't find its bearings I would appreciate it. I kind of feel like this is not a professional product to be honest (actually I was worried ever since the game started up in fullscreen mode.)

Seriously, you are not even going to try and reinstall the game properly after messing it up? The most BASIC first method of fixing ANY computer software? This is no one's fault but your own.

I am a software engineer etc. You could just as easily say reboot the computer and see if that helps. It takes much time and trouble. Tell me why the product is not acting as it should and that's a different story.

No it isn't worth the trouble. I have things to do, and don't expect an outcome for no reason.

EDITED: I opened a support ticket linked to here. I'd like to help GoG improve its products.

OK, my thought was it sounds like a permission issue. Moving it is likely fine as my current "install" is from my previous computer, copied over, as my CD is MIA. You could check the registry entries to see if it's referring to the original location. I would still double check the permissions on the main .ini as well. Shrug, IIRC the install doesn't take long and support is likely to suggest it. Whatever the problem it's particular to your setup. Let us know if support comes up with a solution. Oh, I always play the game fullscreen just not 640x480. ;)

If there is something in the registry that needs to be aligned then that would be a place to start, also if there is a main .ini file it would be good to know where to find that. I gave support a link to this thread. I can't think of any reason why a new game would need to Run as Administrator. But if that was the case then the launcher should prompt to do that every time it runs. Windows 7 will not let me set the Compatibility Mode of the shortcut or the DeusEx.exe file.

The file properties say "Compatibility modes cannot be set permanently on this program because it is on a network drive.". Which seems silly because IIRC these modes are saved in the registry anyway, but regardless. I assume Windows thinks it must have a hardware ID or something for this to work.

GoG needs to develop a real launcher instead of shortcuts. I've done this myself before. It's easy to do. These are new games, they should work on new computers. Think of the time saved in support queries. If something in the registry doesn't match it should be patched by the launcher. If these games are DRM free they should be able to be moved around a filesystem without problems.

Although I am still not convinced this game should require Adminstration mode just to save its config. That's a security risk. That with a proper launch could be avoided altogether.

You are a software engineer but you won't do the basic fixes of reboot (which is known to fix certain issues) and re-installation of software (bearing in mind that you moved the files after installation which isn't a wise thing to do)? Looked inside the game installation folder? Though, if you installed to Program Files on a Vista/7/8 machine then it probably won't be in there anyway and you'll have to go searching through your user folder, probably in AppData/Roaming or similar. And if you did move it after installing to Program Files then this may be the root cause of the issue. Deus Ex is not a new game. It came out in 2000 and uses Unreal Engine 1. If you installed into Program Files on Vista/7/8 then UAC and DEP will try to kick in which is why Run as administrator then becomes required. All GOG have done is package it into an installer and apply known fixes and settings to allow it to run on modern machines (they have a number of test machines which GOG support say they must get a game working on all of them before they release it for purchase).

Also, being DRM free does not mean you can move game files around a filesystem. File referencing is not DRM, and if the game is looking for files in the place it was told it was installed to, and then it was moved, that reference becomes broken. That is not DRM.


If you didn't install to Program Files then why did you need to move it anyway? And if you cannot set compatibility settings on the executable and have to run as administrator regardless of install location, then that sounds like a permissions issue.

You have things to do, but you had time set aside to play Deus Ex? Playing through that game would take a hell of a lot longer than a re-install of it. Surely there is time to do that?

Not only that, you could have re-installed first in much less time than it took to post here, open a support ticket and wait for a reply, which you should have known the first thing you would be asked to do is re-install the game.

I think we've established that re-installing would not make a difference. So I was right to expect that. And no posting here takes little time. I might not post, but I'd like to figure out how I can pay money for a new game that doesn't work on my computer.

GoG is a good concept. But it needs to hire someone to develop a simple launcher. All of the UAC stuff can be disabled by a launcher. UAC is more of a paranoia thing that only applies to old programs that are no longer maintained. While here we have games that are being maintained. If they are not, then they should be made available for free / donations at the very least.

If the only thing a launcher did is popup the UAC screen so that the end user understands the program is compromising the computer, and doesn't have to remember to right click -> Run as Administrator that would be better than nothing.

Still I don't understand why the game can run, and play, but the config isn't saved. That doesn't sound like anything that UAC would get in the way of.

We can discuss this professionally, or like its voodoo magic, if at all. To be honest it takes too much time for the game to start up to even bother with testing it. It's worth my time to play Deus Ex if its a good game, but its not worth my time to waste time just to find out if it is or isn't. An all purpose launcher would save everyone including GoG a lot of undue stress and man hours, either on the job or off.

PS: I also have to figure out how the thing can be made to work in windowed mode always before I try to run it again. It takes too long to come on to have my screen tied up.

How have we established that re-installing won't make a difference when you haven't tried it?

And as I said before, it is not a new game. Deus Ex came out in 2000, so it is 13 years old, long before the days of UAC and DEP, and that's why they sometimes get in the way of old games, thus requiring run as administrator. Most notably this happens when Program Files is used as it is a protected OS folder.

As for the long startup time, that might be something you could fix by using a different renderer in the game's ini file, which should be in the root of the game installation folder unless you installed to Program Files, in which case it is likely located within your User AppData folder somewhere.

No, we haven't established that re-installing would make no difference because you haven't even tried it. You say it takes too long to re-install, but it was ~24 hours between your initial post and followup post. It's now going on 3 days since your initial post and you're waiting for someone to reply with a fix to your problem while you haven't bothered to try re-installing the game because that takes too much time?

I have a hard time believing you are a software engineer because you refuse to try a basic step in troubleshooting a problem. I know of no engineer that would refuse to try something because they think it won't work. You then have to ask where the .ini file is and if there are any registry settings that would need to be "aligned" since you moved the game directory. The .ini files are in the DeusEx\System directory, did you try looking for them yourself? There are quite a bit of registry entries too, you do know regedit has a search feature?

It sounds like you installed it on a network drive, then moved it to another directory. Something went wrong along the way, whether it's the .ini files, permissions or registry settings, do you know what would have fixed all of that? REINSTALLING THE GAME! Do yourself (and all of us trying to help you) a favor, quit being stubborn and re-install the game to a local drive, and not in Program Files.

No matter what line of work you're in, when troubleshooting a problem the first thing to do is check the most common, basic things, even if you don't think they are the cause. It's better to eliminate them before moving on to the more time consuming tasks, because it wastes more time if you go looking for a major problem and it turned out to be something simple to begin with.

UAC (User Account Control) is a method to ensure a user is positive about taking the action they have requested due to that action requiring administrator privileges. As such it is not something that applies only to old programs. What it does mean, though, is that old programs were not written to deal with UAC prompts as UAC didn't exist when they were written, so anything they try to do which requires administrator privileges will kick off UAC (unless you disable it). One such example is the Program Files folders which are protected so that initial installation to the folder is fine, but changes to those files after installation are not (which is why settings and save files for modern software ends up in the User folder somewhere, such as AppData/Local and AppData/Roaming.

You also do not understand what GOG is about. Deus Ex is not a new game, and it is not being maintained. All that GOG do with old titles is to bolt on known fixes (DOSBox for DOS games, SCUMMVM for the relevant adventure games, community fixes, no CD hacks, compatibility settings, etc) and package into an installer (InnoSetup). They also add links for the Game Explorer. GOG do not have game source code and do not patch the games. They can release new versions if there are new official patches, and they can apply different fixes, but that is all.

As for non-maintained games being made available for free, that is just silly. There are lots of games that are old, no longer supported or maintained, some no longer being sold any more. That doesn't mean they are available for free (not legally anyway). The copyright is still in effect in many cases. GOG gain rights to sell these old games from the copyright holders.

I installed the game while composing my earlier post to try and replicate Mick_P_'s problem, but I was unable to. I don't have the GOG version, I still have my original disk, and I bought the GOTY version on Steam a couple of years ago. I haven't played the Steam version, I just bought it to have a digital copy for the future if my disk bites the dust. I just decided to check in on the forums because I think I'm going to buy it again from GOG for a DRM free backup while it's on sale (and it supports GOG).

I had no problem installing it from my disk. I installed it to my D: drive, and it runs fine without needing admin privileges. I set up the graphics options, key bindings, etc., re-started the game, and my settings were saved. I then started the game tutorial, saved the game, exited, then re-started and my settings were still saved. I looked in the registry and it does install several registry entries pointing to the install directory. I then moved the game directory to another drive, but it still ran fine. I made some changes to the key binding and game settings, and they were retained after re-starting even though the registry entries still point to the old location.

The [url= http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Game_of_the_Year_Edition] PC Gaming Wiki[/url] is a good place to look for getting older games to work on newer systems, but Deus Ex works just fine "out of the box" for me on Windows 7 64-bit.