*sigh of exhaustion and despair*
Okay. So. Over the weekend I picked up the nasty Antivirus Vista 2010 virus. My computer was kaput for a few days, then I fixed it up in short order with Malwarebyte's anti-malware program. I thought all was well, and resumed working on my realism mod.

I started up Fallout 3 to test something, and - FML - I HAVE NO CURSOR. I can't click through the opening credits or select any of the menu options. I had to Control-Alt-Delete out of the program. I tried restarting the computer, removing the disk, everything. I'm convinced that if anything will fix the issue, it's uninstalling and reinstalling the game entirely. I don't mind losing my saves; I haven't actually been doing any real gameplay since I started making my mod, just testing. But what I DO very much mind is losing my mod. Recreating it would be long and tedious (though not impossible; I've catalogued all the changes I've made).

How should I go about this?

Copy your mod files somewhere else before uninstalling?

I can't help feeling I've missed something...

So they won't like... get screwed up and not work anymore, if the game gets uninstalled and they're still on the computer?

Also, do I just need to copy the .esp files elsewhere? Or are there other files I have to copy?

Mod files are just data files, the game doesn't register them or anything. Just put them somewhere safe (in My Documents or something), uninstall and reinstall the game, and put the mod files back where they belong.

Without knowing anything about your mod I don't know what files you've added. If everything in your mod was done in the GECK, then you just make your .esp safe. If you've added models, textures, sounds etc. (and if you have you'll know you did it - GECK doesn't do anything like that) then you'll have to make those safe as well.

Do you have a XBox360 controller connected in your PC? I had some trouble with it and main menu some time ago.
--
Mikkis

Uninstalling it and reinstalling it didn't work! What the hell?! Where is my cursor?!!

And @above - No.

Perhaps your darn UI got screwed up. Delete your Menus folder?

Uh... what? Sorry, I'm computer literate, but still kinda slow. What is my "darnUI", and where is my "Menus" folder?

Also, I should be more descriptive. Not only is my cursor gone, but the menu options do not appear at the end of the opening credits, and the lighting doesn't change slightly at the beginning of the credits like it used to (on account of my having changed the lighting settings in the game options before).

Some of these Scareware programs are nasty in that they screw up registry settings in the user profile. You could try creating a new user on your PC, make it Administrator, log in as the new user, and try running your game, just to eliminate that possibility. Remember that the new user won't see any of your game saves under the old user so don't freak out when you launch the game and don't see them

:/
Isn't there a way to fix the registry settings? I'd rather not create a new user. I mean, I will if there's no other option, but if I can fix the registry settings I'd like to try that first.

Well, adding the new user would be just a test to see if this was really your problem. After the test, just log in as yourself and delete the new user. To fix the registry, you would have to know which registry keys were changed. every piece of malware out there does something different, and nobody bothers to research and document the effects of every individual one.

Another possibility is a problem with directx. You could run dxdiag (from Start-Run) and look at the 'Input' tab to make sure your mouse is connected, directx wise.

I would download and install ccleaner - www.ccleaner.com - and then run the registry scanner in that program. It won't necessarily fix the issue but it's worth a shot. In my experience it takes several passes to fix all the registry issues. I use this program on a daily basis in my job as a computer tech.

:(
I created a new admin account and started the game up, and the cursor and menu options still didn't appear.



How do I access "Start-Run"?

Also, I also mentioned that the menu options weren't appearing after the opening credits. Considering that, do you really think that might be the issue?



... I'm not sure why it would take multiple scans to pick up something. It doesn't pick up anything new when I scan again after fixing all the issues.

Also, this doesn't make my cursor or the menu options reappear either.

Not that I think this will help, but to run the DXDiag, Click on "Start", its the green start button on the lower left of your desktop. Then choose "Run" then type "DXDiag" in the run window and hit enter. Ten look on the "Input" tab of the DXDiag (when its finished running and displays the results) and look at your mouse conectivity.

My response after having gone through the exact same thing last week is to save your save games and esp files and everything else that is impotant to you (like your Documetns and Settings folder and its sub-folders) to a backup device and reformat your hard drive and re-install your OS. That is truely the only way to permanently remove the effects (or side effects) of viruses and other mal-ware.

I'm using Vista. It's set up differently. There's no "Run" in the start menu.



*sigh*
I've been considering this. I didn't want to do it because I've never done it before, but it's starting to look like my only option. I'll have my friend help me with it. Thanks, though.

I run XP, so I don't even know what Vista looks like, but it must have some "Run" capability somewhere, sorry.

As for the *sigh*, I know what you mean. I spent a week or more trying everything other than an OS re-install, but my "Virus" just would not leave. I used Spybot S&D, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, CCLeaner and the rest of them. Even when my system appeared "clean" I still had malware manifestations, like my GECK would take 2 seconds to update after any input. Check a flag on a data page, wait 2 seconds to see the update, that sort of thing. Eventually, I spent more time on it than a re-install would take, so I bit the bullet so to speak and did the re-install. I partition my HDD into two drives (C: & D:) just for this reason. I can use the D: drive to backup stuff I want to save from my C: drive (like Documents and Setting Folder). I keep all the data that I can on my D: drive and use C: for the OS and stuff that has to be on the C partition. It makes re-installing my OS that much easier. My D: drive never gets infected with anything, just my C:. Another note about this is that malware can effect parts of the Documents and Settings folder, so after reinstalling the OS, don't just copy the whole folder back. Rather, just copy the specific items you want back - like your fallout ini and save games and your browser "favorites", etc...

I wish you luck.

?_?

I was kinda hoping to save all my Word documents, Audacity recordings, screenshots, photos, saved images, and music.

You have to enable the run command by going to properties of the Taskbar, then the 'Start Menu' tab, then customize.

Or just open a command prompt and type dxdiag

But I'm afraid pkleiss may be right. For all you know, there may still be a malignant process running on your PC or system files may have been corrupted.

Sounds like you're running the "Cleaner" scan - the one that removes temp files and such. That wouldn't need to be run more than once to pick up all the issues. On the left-hand side of the CCleaner window is a series of tabs, labeled "Cleaner", "Registry", "Tools" and "Options". Click the one marked "Registry" and run that scan a few times. If you already did that, then you're lucky, it does usually take several scans to find and remove all the registry issues.

It's a rather long shot, but worth a try anyway since it tends to have a positive effect on the general performance of your computer.

No, I did run the "Registry Integrity" scan. It didn't come up with anything new the second time I ran it, but Fallout still didn't run properly. I'm just going to reformat and reinstal the OS, prolly. But I'm just worried about my documents and pictures and such, because the guy above told me not to save them because they can carry over problems.

No, that's not what I meant. All the stuff you mention, you can reuse. I was more trying to avoid you copying the saved folder back to the new folder in its entirety. Your data should be fine. Its things like browsing history, temporary internet files, cookies and that sort of thing that can bring back problems. For my OS (XP) these things are in a hidden folder called "Default User" and in other locations. That's why I recommend not copying back the whole folder all at once, but just the sections you want one at a time. You can keep the saved folder for a while, and if you find you are missing some files from it, you can then copy those. After a while you'll find you are no longer missing anything, you can then go ahead and delete the old saved folder.

EDIT: Just to reiterate, make a backup of your entire Documents and Setting folder, but restore sections from it one sub-folder at a time as needed.

WHAT THE [censored]?!!

It was my MOD! My mod [censored] BROKE THE GAME! How did this even happen?!

I tried loading it using a different mod, and it started right up just fine. I cannot believe this. This is not supposed to HAPPEN. The GECK is not supposed to do this sort of thing.

I cannot believe this. I have to get rid of the defective mod. I have to make it all over again from scratch. This is awful. This is absolutely horrendous. How could this have even HAPPENED?! What did I do WRONG?!

Seriously, this is impossible! I was only modding low level stuff! Making encounter zones, basic scripts! Modding weapon and armor stats, that sort of thing!

I just don't get it. It must have been one of my scripts. One of the item scripts I was using to change the basis of derived stats.

I'm sorry, guys, I need some time to sort through my changes and see where I went wrong.

EDIT: Sorry, mods. Didn't think it'd be too strict of a rule here, considering all the swearing in the game. Won't do it again.

Get FO3EDIT. Check for errors in the mod. See if there are override records in there that you didn't mean to change. If there are, you can just drag fields from the main fallout ESM to your mod to make them identical, then run a filter to clean out 'identical to master' records.

And, if your lucky enough, the Geck saves your last 10 versions in the \Data\backup folder. You might want to try loading some of those into the geck and see if the problem vanishes. It might save you some tmie trying to find and fix stuff. But FO3Edit is the way to go if you can't find a usable backup of your mod.

I think I know which script screwed things up (I had it use a "short doOnce" command, then didn't have it "set doOnce to 1" until you *left* the trigger zone, despite it requiring to check this variable on entrance), but I've decided I'm not going to try and salvage it. This mod was already starting to become bloated with changes, none of which I had properly catalogued or documented for my own records. I'm going to start over, keeping a close record, including careful transcription of script changes and charts for systematic changes, so that problems don't shock me as much, or set me back in my work so far.

The only things I'm still in disbelief about are that the script error [1] didn't trigger a warning from the GECK when I saved it, and [2] broke the game on startup, instead of upon my entrance to the trigger zone when testing, or upon trying to load the cell the trigger zone was in. I don't suppose anybody here might have an idea about either of these things?