SimCity 4 Deluxe stopped working in Windows 7

simcity-4technical-issueswindows 7

I had SimCity 4 Deluxe installed and running on Windows 7 64-bit without any major issues for a few months. As far as I can remember, I do not think I even had to adjust compatibility mode, or tweak the command line launch options. Few days ago it worked fine, but yesterday I had tried to launch it, but it failed to start.

SimCity4.exe process appears in Task Manager, but only takes up 1.7-2.3 Mb of RAM and nothing happens (no error messages, no activity whatsoever). I checked Windows Event Log, as per suggestion in comments, it does not throw any errors. I suppose system does not deem it as an error since the process continues to run, and does not crash.

I had not install any new software recently, and latest Windows update was installed two and a half weeks ago, i.e. it could not contribute to the issue conceivably. The only thing I did differently game-wise is save on exit (before I would customarily save the game, or save and exit to region, and only then actually exit), but that would not break the installation, would it now?

Before I try reinstalling it, I would like to comprehend the mystery of what had transpired. Is that game files corruption issue? Is that some sort of system glitch? I would appreciate any input in answers or comments to help diagnose the problem.

Best Answer

Answer in Progress

Issue is caused by Kaspersky Internet Security, which for some reason assigned High Restricted (based on heuristics) application control setting, and subsequently denied it for “code intrusion”. Manually assigning Trusted rating solves the problem.

Related Solutions

EPSXe is not working in Windows 8.1

You could try installing the program as win XP/7 compatible and run the program when installing with admin rights. These options can be found when right clicking the install file(if ePSXe is already installed, remove it then install it again)

I have had install and running issues with many programs (not just games) and I have found when installing anything on win 8/8.1/10 installing as compatible with admin rights gets it working most of the time (the odd time it didnt I spent 2 hours or more trying to get it to work(if it doesnt work there is most likely something insalled on the PC preventing it from working))

If you need me to go through anything just leave a comment and I'll see what I can do to help

GTAVLauncher.exe has stopped working – is there a fix

What does the error tell us?

Problemereignisname:  BEX64
Fehlermodulname:  StackHash_756f
Ausnahmeoffset:   PCH_A3_FROM_GTAVLauncher+0x00000000000A5B29
Ausnahmecode: c0000005
Ausnahmedaten:    0000000000000008

0xc0000005 is an exception of type (memory) Access Violation, meaning that the game tried to access memory that did not belong to it ^[1]. This might be a software error (bug) in the game itself, or in one of the libraries it uses ^[2].

This particular error is probably raised by DEP (Data Execution Prevention):

A user-mode DEP exception results in a STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) on Windows systems. The first parameter of ExceptionInformation that is located inside the EXCEPTION_RECORD structure contains the type of access violation that occurred. A value of 8 for ExceptionInformation[0] indicates the access violation was an execution violation.

Note that this (8) is the value of your Exception Information (Ausnahmedaten).

How do we fix this?

Because this is a software error, the usual course of action is to wait until the publisher updates the software. This is the safest course to take, but may take a few days or weeks.

Another option is to exclude this application from DEP. However, because the DEP error is a symptom of the problem, and not itself the problem, there is no guarantee that adding an exception will resolve your problem.

From the Wikipedia:

These problems may be prevented by disabling DEP, but this increases vulnerability of the system to malware. DEP can be turned off on a per-application basis, or turned off entirely for all non-essential Windows programs and services. Microsoft recommends that DEP not be globally disabled where an application malfunctions due to incompatibility with DEP. Instead, the supplier of the offending software should be contacted for an updated version that does not violate DEP; until the problem is corrected DEP may be disabled on an exception basis for the offending application only.

^{[1] ... or that was not marked to be so accessed, e.g. trying to execute code from memory not marked as executable.}

^{[2] However, Windows was unable to determine where exactly it went wrong, which is why it took a "Stack Hash".}

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