WanderingAries

Do we have a clue as to what crashed it? I'd hate to have you go through all that only for it to repeat itself.

*grumbles, smacks hand for clicking the wrong red X button on the screen*

Fix Write-up, round 2!

Considering your limited experience I normally wouldn't have somebody make the following changes, but I feel that you seem comfortable enough following directions so far that I'll try this.

Delete the following game related files:

In your C:\Program Files (x86)\NCsoft\City of Heroes folder delete the client.chksum file and any folder that starts with the wavy line character ~. This will force the game to recheck itself even if the rest of this fails to force it to.

In your C:\Program Files (x86)\NCSoft\Launcher\Config\Default folder, delete any files that start with Games and end with xml. This will basically reset the launcher's settings and you will likely have to manually tell it where City of Heroes is installed. It's kind of like when you first installed the game, only everything is downloaded already. You'll want to make any changes like adding the -maxinactivefps setting change (that many of us use to help make life easier on the computer) or having the launcher automatically close after game launch.

Backing Up Game Registry Settings:
Since you managed to pull up that registry nicely, then the following should be a sinch. Making Absolutely sure you're clicking where I say, open the registry to where you were for the pictures. Left click on the word CoH that is in the list on your left. Now you want to right click that word and choose Export. When the window pops up click the Desktop icon that's on the list to the left, give the file a name, and click Save. That basically saves our butt incase this doesn't work the way I'm intending it to.

Refreshing Game Registry Settings:
The next part might seem scary, but if you've gotten this far then you're doing great! Right click the word CoH again, but this time choose Delete. Tell it yes and you'll be fine as we already backed them up. Now the next part requires you to do some copy/pasting from this post. I've gone through and modified my Full Screen Playstyle registry settings to your screen resolution and Account Name. This will launch the game in Full Screen, but you can just as easily change that if it gets you into the login screen!

Here's the new partial registry entry:

While you're waiting, change (if it's not already) the following setting in the nVidia control panel. You should be able to right click the desktop to get to it quickly. You probably have to click the Settings button in the window and change from "standard" to "advanced" first.

Under "3D Settings" there should be a spot for "Adjust image settings". Once you click that there should be something to the right with three options:

"Let app choose" <---chose this one
"Use Advanced Settings"
"Use my preferences"

Click the "Manage 3D Settings" link on the left of that window. Click the "Restore" button under the "Global Settings" thing. This will reset your software settings to default.

I'm looking/comparing the entries now and I'm going to come up with a registry trick that should fix a couple of the numbers in a way that won't require you to necessarily click a few hundred times.

Funny enough, (from my observations atleast) this is one of those random Windows things that just kinda happens on rare occasions. I don't know if it's related to a recent OS patch or what, but every now and then I'd get something like this happening with the Game, IE, and a couple other apps. That was when I was running XP primarily, but we never could figure out what caused it. It does seem to "go away" on its own, but it wouldn't hurt to do some system maintenance:

IE:
Flush your temp files;
Do a cold-boot (results in definitely clearing the RAM of garbage);
Defrag the HDD;
etc

If you're wondering if the Game is the issue (considering we Did just have a recent patch), then the consistency checks should help to clear things up some.

I just re-read it again and this is what keeps coming to mind:

*excerpt from Voltaire's Live Album*
Picard: Worf, you're needed on the bridge.
Worf: I..can't...come to the bridge right now captain.
Picard: Worf, that's insubordination, I need you on the bridge right now.
.
.
.
Riker: Did you ask him if it was a #1 or #2?

And thank you for taking the time to respond with the solution, nomatter what it ended up being.

EDIT:
I didn't refresh my tabs before replying...

Just some personal experience, I too took off roughly two years (my entire Post-AAS --> BS:CIS degree path) and came back to the opposite. I inherited three groups with members that had been inactive for almost the same amount of time (upto just prior to i19). Since I had created the one just for my alts (IE: I knew nobody else was there playerwise), I consolidated that one into another and then thought long and hard about the group and its membership. Taking into account that I myself had taken a rather long "Retirement", I decided not to remove members, but did send ingame emails just incase it was simply the toons that were inactive. Sure enough, after being here over a year now atleast 1-2 people have showed back up on the radar.

The turn of events kinda sucks, but there are plenty of groups out there willing to take in lost toons. My remaining groups are casual oriented so players don't even need to play in SG mode unless they want to help with group badges and even then it's voluntary. Trust me when I say things have changed ALOT in the last few years.