Windower 4 fails to launch. Blank white box.

[DavionCA]

Description: Windows 4 (fresh install) fails to load beyond a white, tall, narrow box. Initial "Windower 4" banner appears, then is replaced with the blank box. Common button locations (Close in top-right corner) seem to work.

OS: Windows 8 Enterprise x64

Windower Version: 4

Plug-ins/addons/other: Only what comes with the installer.

Settings.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<settings>
<profile name="">
<consolekey>Insert</consolekey>
<uiscale>1</uiscale>
</profile>
</settings>

Details of how the issue happened: This is after initial install of Windower 4. Windower 3 runs without issue. Tried turning things off (UAC, firewall, etc.) and used various Compatibility Mode options (7, XP SP3/2, etc.) with no difference. Launching with "Run as Administrator", but no difference. Hook.dll appears to be downloading upon launch. System has 2 GFX systems (Intel and Nvidia), tried forcing it to run on either with no change in results.

System is a Dell XPS L702X.

[Ihellmasker]

Is is the launcher or the game that isn't working?

[DavionCA]

This is the launcher. I don't get far enough to attempt to launch the game. The sequence of events is:

1. Launch Windower 4 from desktop shortcut
2. UAC pop-up > Allow run as Admin
3. Windower 4 banner appears, then disappears
4. Tall, narrow white box appears. Task bar Icon is the Windower 4 icon.

Interestingly enough I can click the upper-right corner where the close "X" would normally be and it will close.The window can also be dragged and minimized.

I left it open for quite some time (10+ minutes) just in case it needed to download something more, but no change.

[semuer]

same situation here
Windows8 x64 Pro

[alphaONE2]

This is not possible to fix at this time. It appears to be a bug in WPF itself, and I cannot reproduce the issue to attempt a work around.

[DavionCA]

Is there anything that I can provide on my end to help debug this? Maybe if you can point me in the direction of the bug in WPF (KB #, etc.) I can work to try to figure something out. Would hate to just close this without attempting some kind of a fix.

[alphaONE2]

I have only been able to find a few references to similar issues with other WPF applications on google, and no work arounds or details about the cause of the problem.

The only thing I can think of specifically would be a conflict with your GPU, you might try disabling the WPF hardware renderer, but I'm not sure if that will help at all.

[DavionCA]

That did it. I disabled hardware rendering for WPF via registry key. I had to add the key HK_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics then add a DWORD (32-bit) entry with a value of 1.

I am testing now to see if that is going to cause problems with anything else, but so far that allowed Windower to launch, downloaded addons and plug-ins, and launch the XI client. I'll report in with further testing results.

[DavionCA]

So it looks like disabling HW acceleration is playing hell with Chrome, or it's just a coincidence. The game itself seems to be running smooth enough, but I don't know if that is using WPF at all so I'm not sure if the registry setting has any bearing on it at all.

[AngelAeryi]

i figured out a quick fix that works for me

right click windower icon > properties > compatibility tab > check disable desktop composition

this just causes your desktop to switch to windows basic so if thats not a problem for you when windower is running then go for it.

and im running windows 7 so not sure if this fixes those running windows 8 or not

[nytesong]

I'm on windows 8 x64, and after reading the above comment about a windows 7 setting for compatability>desktop composition, i decided to see if changing my theme in windows 8 to a more simple one that dont have all the nice changing images that look great. well i can now see the windower menu and its not just a white box!

additional info: i use a asus g46vw laptop and chose the basic installed asus theme.

i hope this helps anyone wandering this way.