Alice2.2 won't start on an XP laptop

I downloaded Alice2.2 and extracted the files to my son's laptop, which runs Windows XP I already have it running successfully on my university computer (also XP) and on a Mac. But on the laptop, when I click on Alice.exe, I get an error that says "Application failed to start because of an application configuration error", and suggests that I reinstall. The files have been extracted to C:/Alice2.2. I tried redownloading, but that didn't help. I can see no difference in the way the files are set up on the XP laptop compared to my university computer. Does anyone have any idea at all of what the problem could be?

thanks,
Bonnie MacKellar

[zonedabone]

Does your son have limited or admin priviliges?

If he has limited priviliges, then he may not be able to write to the config file location. try running it on an admin account, and report back.



I have a solution if this is the problem:

1. Go to this file: Alice 2.2\Required\etc\version.txt
2. And put the full path of a writable directoy there:

On XP, this probably E:\Documents and Settings\[USER]\My Documents

Now Try using Alice...

I'm having a similar problem with getting Alice to work on a laptop running XP. I downloaded Alice off alice.org, 1st the version with textbook worlds, then the version wo textbook worlds, then the version off a thumb drive that I received at the 7/6->7/10 ACTIVATE Alice workshop. I also tried to change compatibility but there wasn't an option to select XP, so I tried a couple of the others.

I also tried to add a writeable location to the version file (saw this suggested on another posting?) - maybe I didn't do so properly? I used notepad to add in a line 1st at the end of the file, then tried at the beginning of the file.

None of these variations seemed to work. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

[JAA]

I recently did a clean install of XP on a stock DELL Dimension 3000 (I know she's old), Alice worked fine the first couple of times I ran it by chosing [IfAliceFailsTryThis]. Now the command prompt comes up and it shows the loading splash screen but stops. I've let it go for like 20 - 30 minutes but it never actually loads. I had a similar problem on Vista but I wouldn't be able to make the splash screen go away without restarting the PC. I do have a lot of programs running in the background like a desktop cube, transparent windows, desktop backgound slide show, desktop clock gadget looking thingy, daemon tools, oh yeah and always Media Player Clasic and sometimes slim browser. The computer is still running at decent speeds, I can run FL Studio just fine. Here's my specs...

Win XP Pro w/ service pack 3
2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4
256MB of Ram
80GB Hard Drive