Vista - Vista, Xfire & the wsock32 error!

I recently installed crysis warhead on my 64bit machine & got the famous wsock32.dll message.After a lot of research, ive discovered a lot of games are suffering from this problem.

On extensive reading, xfire appears to be part of the problem & usually needs to be disabled as an unacceptable workaround. The other part of the problem appears to be related to drm on a 64 bit pc, since 'CmdLineExtInsallerExe.exe' is apparantly related to the drm software, & the error mostly appears on computers running 64 bit vista.

Currently there are 2 workarounds i have discovered:

Note: For this tutorial i am using crysis warhead as an example because this is the only game i have that has this problem. You will have warhead installed in a different directory than mine, or maybe a different game with the same problem.

First, is to dump 4 files into the same folder as the game's .exe. So for crysis warhead, id need to find crysis.exe, which is located in my C:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Crysis WARHEAD\Bin32. Your will obviously be different.

First, find these files in C:\windows\syswow64:
wsock32.dll
winmm.dll
oleacc.dll
msimg32.dll

Now dump the 4 files into the same folder as the game's .exe. So for crysis warhead, id need to find crysis.exe, which is located in my C:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Crysis WARHEAD\Bin32. Your game install directory will obviously be different.

Now in order for this to work, the games shortcuts MUST be edited in the Vista Game explorer. To do this, open up the Game Explorer by opening the start menu, & clicking 'Games'

Now right click the game in question (so again for me, it would be crysis warhead), & go to 'Customize'. For crysis warhead, there are 2 or 3 shortcuts, for launching the game in the different directx modes (9 & 10 obviously).

First, we'll start with the 'Play (Play)' Shortcut, make sure it is highlighted, & click edit.

Notice the 'Start in:' box is blank, this needs to be filled in with the directory where the .exe is located. Highlight ALL the text in the 'Target:' box above it, right click it & select 'Copy', then right click in the 'Start in:' box & select 'Paste'

Now the 'Start in:' box should read "C:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Crysis WARHEAD\Bin32\Crysis.exe" what you need to do is delete the '\Crysis.exe' off the end, but leave the " so it reads

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Crysis WARHEAD\Bin32"

Click 'Apply', then click 'OK'.

Click Close.

Option 2 is to enable UAC User Account Control (UAC)

With uac on, we all know of the irritating messages asking you to continue, however they can be disabled User Account Control (UAC) - Elevate Privilege Level

However, after disabling the uac alerts, the security center icon in the system tray will bug you about having it turned off, but that too can be disabled Security Center Specific Alert Notification

The problem with the first option, is that it will need to be done for every game that has the problem, which can be frustrating if a lot of them do it, which is why the uac option might be better for some people. No idea if uac decreases performance though, someone might need to explain a bit more detail on it.

PS If these instructions arent clear or something, someone can rewrite or repost.

Thanks for this, I had the same problem with Crysis Warhead as well.

im looking into another fix that seems to have worked for me;

find these files again, in C:\windows\syswow64:
wsock32.dll
winmm.dll
oleacc.dll
msimg32.dll

copy them & paste into C:\program files\xfire or wherever xfire is installed on your pc.

when i start my comp i have to click a pop says countinue
to start x fire
any way i can start it once & for all

or wil have to do this all the time ?

I have vista 64 bit laptop

Or, here is another fix that seems to work (this is not the only game affected, far from it)

edit your system's PATH variable and add at the end
that did it for me!

To access that variable go to START>computer(Right click)>properties
then advanced system properties>environment variables and you probably can figure the rest!

restarting the session should not be necessary.

That worked perfectly, thank you.