Guild Wars 2

The system requirements state that Guild Wars 2 can run on WinXP. It does not say anything about being restricted to 32bit XP though.

Yet when I try and install it I get the following error.

The program or feature "\??\C:\User\Docume~1\Locals~1\Temp\bin\CoherentUI.exe cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit version of Windows.

I’ve been trying to find a work around as I have noticed other people saying they have it running on a 64 bit PC. But I’ve found nothing. Did I just throw away money (I bought the digital download and you can’t get refunds for digital downloads.)

Is there a way to get this to install?

I guess other people running Guild Wars 2 on a 64bit system have a more up-to-date version of Windows.

From a general standpoint, you really should upgrade your system to Windows 7 or newer. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, meaning you don’t get any new security patches, meaning your computer is (or will be) vulnerable to at least some (automated) exploits. Besides, it might fix your installation problem.

the issue is that XP uses C:\docs and settings\username and vista+ uses c:\users\username

and thats why its failing. Do not expect a fix for this as XP is End of life/support and most application suppliers have also pulled support on XP Installs. Its really time to upgrade to 7.

sirsquishy.8531:

Its really time to upgrade to 7.

Sad but true for you, OP. Microsoft discontinued support for XP in early April. An upgrade is certainly in order.

sigpie.9758:

I guess other people running Guild Wars 2 on a 64bit system have a more up-to-date version of Windows.

From a general standpoint, you really should upgrade your system to Windows 7 or newer. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, meaning you don’t get any new security patches, meaning your computer is (or will be) vulnerable to at least some (automated) exploits. Besides, it might fix your installation problem.

Wish I could. Right now that means buying a new computer, as Win8 won’t run on this one. I could probably get Win7, as that will run on this computer, but that would just be a stopgap measure, one that would just postpone buying a new computer even longer.

sirsquishy.8531:

the issue is that XP uses C:\docs and settings\username and vista+ uses c:\users\username

and thats why its failing. Do not expect a fix for this as XP is End of life/support and most application suppliers have also pulled support on XP Installs. Its really time to upgrade to 7.

Microsoft dropped support, yes. But unless you have seen an official announcement from NCSoft and ArenaNet that I missed, they haven’t. Besides they list it as a requirement. Most of the companies you see that are pulling support are not listing it even as a requirement. As long as its listed, they really are obligated. Otherwise its false advertising and they could be sued.

The Ice Mage.4879:

sirsquishy.8531:

Its really time to upgrade to 7.

Sad but true for you, OP. Microsoft discontinued support for XP in early April. An upgrade is certainly in order.

Read my first response on why that is not happening atm.

Testing a XP x64 SP2 virtual machine, I had no problem opening the launcher. Setup however didn’t work and simply attempted to run from %temp% instead.

I’m assuming you ran Gw2Setup.exe? Open the %temp% folder and look for Gw2.exe. Move it to a new location, wherever you would like to put the game (ie, C:\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe). Now try running Gw2.exe. You may also try running it in compatibility mode by right clicking the exe > Properties > Compatibility.

If you bought the game directly from ArenaNet, you can contact support and request a refund if you desire.

APhantasm.4539:

sigpie.9758:

I guess other people running Guild Wars 2 on a 64bit system have a more up-to-date version of Windows.

From a general standpoint, you really should upgrade your system to Windows 7 or newer. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, meaning you don’t get any new security patches, meaning your computer is (or will be) vulnerable to at least some (automated) exploits. Besides, it might fix your installation problem.

Wish I could. Right now that means buying a new computer, as Win8 won’t run on this one. I could probably get Win7, as that will run on this computer, but that would just be a stopgap measure, one that would just postpone buying a new computer even longer.

sirsquishy.8531:

the issue is that XP uses C:\docs and settings\username and vista+ uses c:\users\username

and thats why its failing. Do not expect a fix for this as XP is End of life/support and most application suppliers have also pulled support on XP Installs. Its really time to upgrade to 7.

Microsoft dropped support, yes. But unless you have seen an official announcement from NCSoft and ArenaNet that I missed, they haven’t. Besides they list it as a requirement. Most of the companies you see that are pulling support are not listing it even as a requirement. As long as its listed, they really are obligated. Otherwise its false advertising and they could be sued.

The Ice Mage.4879:

sirsquishy.8531:

Its really time to upgrade to 7.

Sad but true for you, OP. Microsoft discontinued support for XP in early April. An upgrade is certainly in order.

Read my first response on why that is not happening atm.

Ok here is the work around, and thats what it is a work around.

Create the folder C:\users

and inside that create a folder, % username % <- no spaces(Stupid Forum), so that your currently installed username gets populated for the folder name.

now go and find “\??\C:\User\Docume~1\Locals~1\Temp\bin\CoherentUI.exe” under your docs and settings profile, and move it to the correct folder location under the new c:\users\%username%\appdata\localdata\temp\bin\

restart the game and see if that helps. If not, then you are stuck needing a new OS.

Ideally, GW2 should create the Bin folder if its not there (you created it already) and then place coherentUI.exe in there and run it. And since GW2 is looking for c:\users to run CoherentIU.exe from it SHOULD find it.

Also there is a possibility that GW2 sees your OS as simply Windows XP and not Windows XP x64. In which case the CoherentUI.exe file might be the wrong version being installed/copied from the gw2.dat during the games launch. I do not know a way to fix this if this is the case though. Maybe see if a friend has gw2.exe running on a win7 x64 install and grab his temp/bin folder?

Their documents and settings folder appears to have been moved to C:\User\…, rather than it making up a path. If the path didn’t exist, that would have been the error. Also, paths aren’t hard coded like that, and instead use the system’s path variables. In this case however, it’s using the relative directory, since the bin folder is located where Gw2.exe is.

Looking more closely, considering their username is missing from the path, either they cut it out or they specifically modified their temp variable, which some people do to make it easier to clear temp files.

Also, CoherentUI.exe shouldn’t exist, though that could simply be the result of Windows generating an exe name for CoherentUI.dll. CoherentUI_Host.exe is the actual exe.

In the game system requirements, ArenaNet says the game is playable on XP but it requires XP with Service Pack 2 installed.

Windows® Minimum System Requirements
Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better

If you do not have SP2 installed, getting it and getting it installed might be a bit of an “adventure” since Microsoft has discontinued support. Even if it might be a stop-gap, you should look at upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit. Just the piece of mind that you will continue to get updates for security issues and drivers is worth the cost.

Okay first off thanks for all the replies. I’ve finally got it installing as I write this.

@Healix, in my original post the C:\Document and Settings\User\ in the path is not the real path. I share my computer with a roommate. And the path had identifying info. Not that you all could use that info, I still prefer to edit it out. Also the CoherentUI.exe mentioned in my original post is a typo, it should have been CoherentUI_Host.exe. I had to manually type in the error message as it would not let me copy and paste it.

@LyricDawnhagen, I have ALL the service packs that were created for XP 64bit. On Win7 it still costs money and even if I went ahead and purchased a copy of it, it would still have to wait probably another month. Maybe two because of the Christmas holidays. We’ll see how things go on that front.

Just so you guys know, when you are installing software on Windows – Windows uses environment variables to determine where to install the files.

Locations such as ‘My Documents’ vs. ‘Documents’ will automatically be chosen. The registry even functions the same way, unless the installer is specifically set up differently.

This is why when you install a program on Windows XP, it will get installed to the default ‘Program Files’ folder – but if you install the same program on (say) Windows 7 64-bit, it will get installed in the default ‘Program Files (x86)’ folder.

I know this because I occasionally write installer scripts using Inno Script Studio. Sometimes I need to include registry entries in the script. If I don’t specifically change the default registry script – entries will be placed in HKLM/software (for 32 bit OS) and HKLM/Software/WoW6432Node (for 64 bit OS); which is their correct default location.

Of course, it works the same for the software install locations unless I set up specific locations. It’s generally not a good idea to do that if the software will be installed on different operating systems, especially for 64 bit OS’.

XP-64 had never proper driver support AFAIK, so even if you get it to run the
performance will maybe more than bad.

Just my opinion, but this really has NOTHING To do with MS supporting or not supporting XP any longer, but simply that XP 64-bit was a huge kludge that had neither proper driver nor application support from anyone.

Don’t do it.