Hello BillW50

According to the dxdiag tool on my machine, DX10 is still there and still in perfect running condition. And why should I doubt a diagnostic tool made by a man who once said, "Nobody will ever need more than 640k of RAM?"

According to this link http://www.activewin.com/faq/faq_7.shtml , there is very little difference between DX 9.0c and DX10; so, if I had clobbered DX10, I probably won't notice it till some really picky programme comes along and wants something very specific to DX10.

Btw, Bubby,

that link for the full distributable will probably come in handy for my WinME setup. The web installer wouldn't work for me when I tried to install DX 9.0c last year, possibly because I use Opera and not Internet Explorer. After four hours of downloading by dialup, the installer asked if I wanted to install automatically or manually and I chose manual. Nothing happened and I could not find the downloaded files anywhere; so, I suspect they just loaded into memory and didn't save. Myst IV still complained that DX 9.0c was not on my machine and would not run.

Or maybe it wasn't browser related. When I went to reinstall WinME after trashing a hard drive learning to use Ranish's partition programme, I discovered that the Windows install disk doesn't have a SYS command like the old DOS command to make the disk bootable. So, I just ran the install programme, erased all the visible files, and unhid the system files and erased them too. At that point, I figured I had a formatted disk with a valid boot sector and nothing else on it and could then restore all my backed up files. Everything seemed to work until I tried to use the little tool Windows supplies for installing and uninstalling the optional components such as Freecell and hyperterminal. This tool would no longer reinstall things. Third party applications would install and run but the little wintool would not. So, maybe what was preventing that tool from running was also preventing the webinstall tool from functioning properly, also. My setup had passed the download site's "Are you genuine?" test; so, that was not the issue.

So, this fully distributable thing should probably do the trick, because it is independent of the web installer.

The only reason I use the full redistributable - is I do a lot of testing also involving rebuilds - so I find the full download is preferable because I know that I am always getting the same code every time it gets run (not trusting Microsoft to swap out something behind the curtain - and suddenly I'm getting different results for a mysterious reason).

The full redistributable version is the one that normally gets included on magazine cover CDs, and has the useful benefit of being able to install to PCs that aren't connected to the internet.

But for a one-off while connected the the internet, Microsofts web installer can be a real time saver (especially if you are on dial-up or have a slow DSL connection) - no point downloading components that you don't need.

I would have used this one
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en
In preference to the possibly outdated version on the disk, as this one says it is Vista compatible (my understanding is that it updates the DX9 support components in Vista's mixed DX9/DX10 model).

DirectX usually protects itself against backdating, since attempts to install older versions from game disks are quite likely.

Anyway, give it a "blow over" with the latest DX installer, and it will update any components that require it, downloading only as much as is required (maybe nothing). Doesn't hurt to over-install it, as if it's all up to date, it will just end up skipping everything.

The problem with Vista (or should I say, one of the problems) it doesn't come with a full install of DirectX9 - and DirectX10 is completely new and not backward compatible at all. By installing DirectX9.0c you provide the missing & updated files that some games require. It seems Microsoft weren't thorough enough to make sure that the latest and full version of DirectX9 was included on the DVD when Vista Shipped.

DirectX 9.0c and DirectX 10 can co-exist side-by-side in perfect harmony.

http://www.google.com/search?q=install%20directx9%20vista

Hi Jaddis! I never heard of having more than one version of DirectX installed on one machne. To find out what version of DirectX you have installed, run "dxdiag". And that will tell which version is installed and many other things.

Hi JoanRC! Yes I believe you clobbered DirectX 10. But you can always install it once again from Microsoft's website. Plus I don't know any harm of running DirectX 9.0c either. As it is a good version. :)

Thanks, Bubby! MS really should include Lockergnome in their list of resources to check.

The compatibility was the first thing I tried -- it's the universal panacea in Vista --but it didn't work because the game insisted on looking for the older .dll file.

I just might hook my WinME rig back up to the internet and download the runtime thingy for it, too. The documentation says it is ME compatible. Older games would probably work better with the older hardware, anyway.

So, after installing the older DX9 with no resulting explosions, I have been playing the game for several hours now and it responds well to my current configuration.

Now, if someone could just tell me how to combine the three sticks in the inventory so I can knock the almonds out of the tree ...

You should be just fine. I just checked the November 2007 update (The latest release at the moment) - and it does say it is compatible with Vista. You can get it from Here. (and yes, there is no overlap with names - they are quite separate)

There is also an article Here, that has someone from Microsoft giving advice about running games in compatibility mode if they don't detect DirectX9 being installed.

Im pretty sure it won't get clobbered if the folder of the software doesn't have the same name.

Thanks. I went ahead and installed the DirectX 9.0c that came with the game. My computer did not explode. The game plays. All is well. :)

JoanRC,

I am no expert but I am relatively positive that there should be no problems with having more then one DirectX version installed on your computer at the same time. I know that some of my programs require different levels of DirectX to run and as far as I know I have several versions of it on my computer.

Hope this helps

Recently, I tried playing a game called "Paradise" from Ubisoft. It offerred to install DirectX 9.0c. I didn't think I'd need it, because I have played quite a few older games on my Vista machine, including the entire Myst series (except for Riven, which kept crashing). All of these games have older versions of DirectX. Vista has DirectX 10.

Paradise, however, insists on running under 9.0c, and won't run because it can't find 939x9_28.dll, which I assume is specific to 9.0c. Changing compatibility mode doesn't help in this instance.

There are several possibilities I'm thinking of. If all else fails, I can reinstall WinME on my other hard drive and install 9.0c on it. (My version of WinME had DirectX 9.0b). But really, if a game takes more time to install than it does to play, I'm not sure I'm going to do that.

So, I wrote to Microsoft and asked them if it is possible to install both versions of DirectX on the same computer under the same OS. Will they co-exist? Will one clobber the other? Will both fail?

Failing all that, could I just find this .dll file and insert it into my DirectX 10 directory?

Do I have to uninstall one version of DirecX and install the other? Is that even possible?

MS Customer Support Wrote back and gave me a list of places where I could look for help, at $59 a pop. A search of their community forums turned up one relevant post from someone who thinks there would be no harm in installing both versions under the same OS. It was a very short post; so, I was unable to assess whether this was a knowledgeable individual.

I do have my system all recently backed up in preparation for installing Linux on my other drive; so, if I do trash Vista, I don't particularly care.