Deskscapes Wont Load

Monday, December 14, 2009 by Xiandi | Discussion: Object Desktop

I had Descapes before and it was running fine. With the last update to it, it only partially worked. Some dreams would play, some would not. I have not tried to find out what the problem is until today.

I tried to load a dream today. I opened Deskscapes, clicked the one I wanted, and applied it. The only thing it showed on my screen was a tiny dark box in the middle of my screen and it crashed explorer.

I went to Impulse to see if there was any updates to it (sometimes that will fix things). Impulse showed that I did not even have Deskscapes installed! So...

I uninstalled Deskscapes using Revo Uninstaller, which cleans the registry along with the uninstall process. Opened Impulse to install Deskscapes. I have the 'show prerelease version' checked. I try to install it. I get an error message "The beta of the application you are attempting to download/register is not available". I uncheck the 'prerelease version' box and try again. It installs fine. I have verified the install through Impulse too.

Now Deskscapes will not open at all. Not from the start menu, not if I brouse to the exe in the stardock folder and click it...nothing. If I open Impulse again and check the 'prerelease' button, it shows an update available...I try to get that update and get the error message again.

So, now I cant get any dreams to run at all. Any advice will be appreciated.

Lantec
Reply #1 Monday, December 14, 2009 12:44 PM

Start over.....make sure to disable anti-virus/spyware....from reading forum posts it looks like the latest AVG seems to have it in for Impulse....be sure to reboot before trying to run Deskscapes.

Xiandi
Reply #2 Monday, December 14, 2009 1:48 PM

Well, since there is no easy way to turn off AVG temoprarily...I uninstalled it completely. Then I rebooted...opened Impulse...downloaded Deskscapes (prerelease unchecked)...verified the install in Impulse....rebooted.

As soon as my computer came up, I get an error: "dll failed to load, last error code:126".

I still have the same problem. Deskscapes will not open.

Lantec
Reply #3 Monday, December 14, 2009 1:56 PM

That error makes me think it might be a driver issue......have you recently updated your video drivers? or did your problem start right after one of Microsoft's updates?

Xiandi
Reply #4 Monday, December 14, 2009 2:04 PM

I have had no driver updates or windows updates...however I just looked to see if there were any. There is one I can do: nVidia-Display-NVIDIA GeForce 8400. I guess I could update that and see if anything changes.

Lantec
Reply #5 Monday, December 14, 2009 2:11 PM

NVIDIA GeForce 8400

I've seen that card in a number of posts the last year........I'd definitely update.

Xiandi
Reply #6 Monday, December 14, 2009 2:38 PM

updated that

rebooted

installed Deskscapes

rebooted

Still get the dll error and Deskscapes still wont open.

Lantec
Reply #7 Monday, December 14, 2009 2:50 PM

Does it specify which dll it's not finding? I've got one more suggestion and then someone else may have a better idea.....try moving all your downloaded dreams to another directory temporarily. Deskscapes may be trying to load a "bad" dream (play on words)

RedneckDude
Reply #8 Monday, December 14, 2009 2:53 PM

XP Laptop??

Or Vista?

Xiandi
Reply #9 Monday, December 14, 2009 3:02 PM

I'm on Vista, Jim.

try moving all your downloaded dreams to another directory temporarily
Where would they be stored if Deskscapes is not installed?

edit: nevermind, I found out where they are.

Xiandi
Reply #10 Monday, December 14, 2009 3:46 PM

I moved the dreams to a different folder and the error remains upon install and reboot.

The error is exactly how I wrote it. It does not say anything more.

DaveRI
Reply #11 Monday, December 14, 2009 3:50 PM

Along the same lines the dreams also cache up / extract into the user settings, you might want to delete them out of there as well. On XP (Vista ignorant here) it's C:\Doc&Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\DeskScapes\ExtractedData.  I think it used to extract them to individual user app data so you might want to look there as well

Lantec
Reply #12 Monday, December 14, 2009 4:08 PM

I think it's time to get advice from Neil or support@stardock.com

Xiandi
Reply #13 Monday, December 14, 2009 4:23 PM

I'm going to try one more thing with Jims help...if it dont work, I'll open a ticket. Thanks for trying Lantec, I appreciate it.

 

edit: opening a ticket.

Xiandi
Reply #14 Monday, December 14, 2009 5:13 PM

One more thing to add, in case someone sees this and can help....

Once I install Deskscapes, the 'configure deskscapes' option is not in my right click menu.

Shirley
Reply #15 Monday, December 14, 2009 10:19 PM

Once I install Deskscapes, the 'configure deskscapes' option is not in my right click menu.

As soon as my computer came up, I get an error: "dll failed to load, last error code:126".

Do you have something else installed that is loaded into explorer that may be preventing DeskScapes from doing so?  Perhaps another wallpaper changer or some other shell mod?

Xiandi
Reply #16 Monday, December 14, 2009 11:36 PM

Do you have something else installed that is loaded into explorer that may be preventing DeskScapes from doing so? Perhaps another wallpaper changer or some other shell mod?
nope, nothing new since before this started. I've never used a wallpaper changer, or use another shell mod. Just stardock stuff. I have not loaded anything new onto this computer other than AVG Antivirus, and I uninstalled that to make sure that it wasnt interfering with anything.

Edit: I dont think I mentioned that that dll error only shows up when Deskscapes is installed. So, it is definitely related to this problem.

Neil Banfield
Reply #17 Tuesday, December 15, 2009 3:41 AM

Did you have Deskscapes 2 installed previously?

Xiandi
Reply #18 Tuesday, December 15, 2009 10:15 AM

I did and it was working ok, but now I dont have any of them installed.

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