Troubleshooting the Installation of CFL Football For Windows

If you have problems installing CFL Football for Windows, the first thing you should do is use the Windows Update at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to make sure your version of Windows is up-to-date. This tends to solve many installation problems. If you are still having problem,s read the information that follows for your version of Windows. If you are still having problem,s please feel free to e-mail me and I will try and help.

Hardware Compatibility
So far, I don't know of any hardware comaptibility problems with CFL Football For Windows. The game is not very graphics intensive, so any video card (even integrated video) that works with Windows should be just fine. The game is designed to look best at a video resolution of 800 x 600, but will work fine at higher resolutions. The program does not make much use of sound other than a few beeps so again any sound card should work.

Windows Compatibility
I recommend that you use Windows XP. I have tested the game with both Windows 2000 Pro and Windows 98, but ran into a few snags in getting it installed under both of these versions of Windows. I don't have Windows Me, but I have had reports of problems installing the game under Me. Check the sections that follow for any specific ideas / help in getting CFL Football For Windows to install under the different versions of Windows. If you have problems installing the game or come up with a solution to installing it after having a problem, please let me know. Thanks.

Windows 2000
I initally had problems installing CFL Football For Windows under Windows 2000. Here is how I finally got it to work.

After unzipping the game zip file, you will have a SETUP.EXE, SETUP.LST and CFL.CAB. Inside CFL.CAB are the game files such as CFL.EXE and some DLL and OCX files that the Visual BASIC packaging wizard adds. The setup program copies the game files to \Program Files\CFL Football For Windows and the other files with the extensions of dll and ocx to \Winnt\system32. The file that seems to give the grief is msstdfmt.dll. To fix the problem use Winzip or some other similar program to extract any dll and ocx files from CFL.CAB and put them in \Winnt\System32. Next, you need to go to the command prompt and switch to the \Winnt\System32 folder

CD \Windnt\System32

Next type REGSVR32 MSSTDFMT.DLL

You should see a message about the DLL being successfully registered and the game should now work. If you don't get the message about the DLL being successfully registered, double check that you are IN the \Winnt\System32 folder and that you typed the REGSVR32 command correctly with no typos. Note that there is a space after REGSVR32.

Windows 98
Initially, I had no problems with Windows 98, but recently (March, 2005) received a report of a problem and.I was able to duplicate the problem and find a solution. When running SETUP.EXE, a message would appear saying that the system files were old and had to be replaced. After doing this, you would be told the computer had to be rebooted and then when you tried to run SETUP.EXE again, you would get an error message about the file OLEAUT32.DLL.

Here is how I fixed the problem.

1.  If CFL For Windows shows up in Add / Remove Programs in the control panel, uninstall it.

2.  Insert your Windows 98 CD-ROM.  Close the setup if it autoruns.  You need to copy some of your original files from the CD.

3.  Go the Start Menu | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Information.

4.  In the Tools menu, choose System File Checker.

5.  Choose the option that starts "Extract one file..."

6.  For the file name type OLEAUT32.DLL and click on Start.

7.  In the Restore From field, type D:\WIN98 and click on OK  The Save Files In should read C:\Windows\System assuming you have Windows on Drive C. (If your CD-ROM is a different drive letter than D then change the drive letter).  I keep a copy of the CAB files from the CD on my hard drive and you might be doing that also, in which case you can give the directory on your hard drive where they are and you don't even need the CD.

8.  The OLEAUT32.DLL should be restored from the CD.  You may be told you have to reboot.

9.  Repeat steps 5 to 8 to restore two other files.  OLEPRO32.DLL and ASYCFILT.DLL.  Reboot if prompted.

10. Download the latest full version of the game and you should now be able to install it without problems.

Starting with the full version of 1.15a, I have changed how the install works. The problem files like OLEAUT31 have been deleted from the ZIP file What was happening is that these files were overwriting files in the \Windows\System folder. The files are what Microsoft calls the runtime files for Visual BASIC and are actually needed by CFL Football For Windows in order to work. Most people, however, already have those files on their computer already and while putting on the newst version should not cause a problem, it did with Windows 98. If one of these files is missing, you will probably have problems installing or running CFL Football For Windows. You can try and fix this by downloading and installing the latest version of the runtime files from Microsoft. As of this writing (March 25, 2005), the latest version has the file name VBRUNSP6.EXE. If you have problems installing the game, try downloading and running this file. It did not work for me with Windows 98 so I made a change to the game ZIP file, but running this update may help with other versions of Windows such as 2000, Me and XP.

Since the upgrade version of the game never had the DLL files in it, people who initially installed the game on their Windows 98 machine wihtout any problem and then just upgraded the EXE files never had a problem. The problem only showed up when I tried to install the latest ful version on a Windows 98 comuter. The key thing is you have to restore the original DLL files listed above before the SETUP for thegame will work.