Here's a bedtime story about a problem with Babyz and how I fixed it.
The game was crashing on the starting splash screen due to an unhandled exception error involving verbassert.dll and Clothes Closet.env. The game had just been reinstalled and a bunch of hexed files had been removed --- my guess is that the Clothes Closet had been left pointing to a hexed clothing file that was no longer there, since the error messages included numbers that looked similar to those used when hexing something to show up on its own (and the original programmers should have handled their exceptions, so it was probably something they didn't make).
(OK, so this is a computer science student story. You can skip this part if you want.)
Reinstalling Babyz didn't help; neither did copying files from a working install or trying to run it off of another machine. We did virus-check the system and clean things up at this point, but I doubt that was the cause of the problem.
The problem was in the registry settings that the game had left when it last closed. Even when officially deinstalled, Babyz didn't seem to clean these up, but once we deleted them by hand and reinstalled, it worked. If you're having problems, follow the steps below for a true reinstall of Babyz.
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NOTE: Follow these instructions at your own risk. I have tried to explain things clearly, but be warned that the Registry Editor in the hands of someone unfamiliar with Windows is analagous to a grenade launcher in the hands of a five-year-old... DON'T PLAY WITH IT. THIS IS NOT A TOY. IT CAN MESS YOUR COMPUTER UP VERY VERY BADLY!
Back up all of your files... pictures, babyz in the "Adopted Babyz" folder and at Grandma's house, and any hexed toys or clothes that you want to reinstall. If you're afraid that you might miss something, simply copy the entire Program Files\Mindscape\Babyz folder to your desktop.
Uninstall Babyz with the link in the Start menu.
Make sure that everything has been deleted from the registry... Click the Start button, then Run, and type regedit and hit enter. This will get you the Registry Editor. Please take note of my warning above (and don't come crying to me if you ignore it!). The software setting are under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and SOFTWARE. Click on the + beside each name to expand it.
The trick to cleaning out Babyz registry settings is this: the game stores files in two places. Babyz has a folder under both Mindscape and PF.Magic. Delete both folders named Babyz if they are still in your registry.
Reinstall Babyz from the CD.
Add your files again. Unless you have put your Adopted Babyz folder back, the game will demand a code to adopt a new one. If you think that a hexed file was causing your original error, add hexed files back one at a time until you identify the one causing the problem.
Other XP notes:
Sound will cause the game to freeze. It's best to disable it.
NOTE: You cannot disable the sound until after you enter your code to adopt a baby, and the adoption noise will freeze the game. This Catch-22 means that it's hard to do a new install on XP --- bring a baby file from your old computer or download one from a website somewhere.
As I found from other websites, you can also hold down the [SHIFT] and [CTRL] keys when Babyz is starting up to reset the registry settings to the defaults. (Double-click Babyz, then mash both buttons.) However, there are cases like this one where that doesn't reset the values causing the problem. You still need the instructions above to completely deinstall the program, as it does not seem to remove these registry settings when the Deinstaller is run.
Run Babyz in Windows 98 compatibility mode if you are having other problems; right-click on the Babyz icon and choose Properties, then click the Compatibility tab.
I have gotten Babyz to run happily under XP with the sound disabled and no hexed files installed; most hexed files will probably work fine... good luck!
All of this took me a while to figure out, so I'm posting it on the web in the hope that it will help someone else. You may take this page and put it on your Babyz site, but you must leave the link to my homepage and you must leave this notice so that your visitors can copy it, too. (If you add graphics to make it fit in with your site, please upload the original version and make this text a link to it so that people don't have to remove your html tags!)
Cathy Covington
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/cathy/writing-babyz_reg2.htm
When you first install the game and go to toy room the game asks for a babyz code that comes with the game for the first adoption. On winxp the game seizes up at that point. If however you have a baby in the Adopted Babyz folder the game will progress normally. Getting past this first hurdle enables you to do everything you can normally do with the game. You can then remove the baby from the adopted babyz folder and adopt babyz from the game or babyz you've saved..
Type in the code for a new Baby, but change the "a" on the second part to a "b" and the "d" on the "gbd" to an "e" and you'll get twins who are almost identical. So for ginger-haired boy twins, instead of
1456-odma-aaat-gbd
type in
1456-odmb-aaat-gbe
As a side issue, if you want to be surprised and get twins who are very different from each other, choose your code and replace all the first four numbers with 0
0000-mbaa-aaaA-gbd
and then replace that a with a b
0000-mbab-aaaA-gbe
And here are some numbers for "surprise" twins:
For girls
Game black: 0000-hcVb-aaay-gbe
Game tan: 0000-mc4b-aaaM-gbe
Game white: 0000-rc5c-aaac-gbe
For boys
Game black: 0000-gcZb-aaac-gbe
Game tan: 0000-kcYb-aaaE-gbe
Game white: 0000-bc9b-aaaG-gbe
Question: I have some codes, but how do I use them?
Answer: First, you have to put all your Babyz in Grandma's house. To do this, you have to go to your desktop. On your desktop, double-click the My Computer icon. Then double-click C:, Program Files, Mindscape, Babyz, Adopted Babyz. In that window, click Edit, then choose select all. Then click Edit again, and choose cut. Then hit Back on your browser
window and double-click Grandma's House. In that window, click edit, and choose paste. All your Babyz are now in Grandma's House. Open the game, and it'll ask for your code.
Maybe you got a bad hexed item in there that made your game crash; maybe you just want to start from "square one." Maybe dad wants his comp back? For whatever reason, you want to wipe your game from your hard drive, and you want to be able to preserve all your babyz game components (babyz, toyz, clothes) for later, possibly more selective installation. Remember: what will prevent your re-install is an incomplete de-install. Use this procedure.
SAVING
1) Folder all your babyz
2) Would you like to save your Toyz folder, so you can reinstall over the Game Toyz at a later date? If so, copy that folder onto your hard drive.
3) You've saved all your hexed clothes & playscenes on the hard drive already, right? The most important thing in your Clothes folder are your babyz' hair bitmaps! Save ALL those...you don't want to have to track those down later, right?
4) Pull out all the pix you want to save. Don't forget to copy the baby books!
TO DE-INSTALL
1) Press "Start" then "Search" for Mindscape. That's where the components of your Babyz game are stored. Delete both the folders marked "Babyz."
2) Now you're going to find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PF.Magic\Babyz
Click "Start," click "Run" and type in Regedit.exe...then just "follow the dots" HKEY LOCAL MACHINE to Software to PF Magic to Babyz. Then delete everything marked Babyz. Congratulations! You have now de-installed the game. (And haven't lost any of your stuff or screwed up anything else on the comp!)
Some time in the future you can reinstall from game disk & drag 'n' drop your saved material back into the game.