Vista - Service Pack 2 has stopped my games from working

Hi,
Last night my Vista Ultimate x64 said there was 1 available update. This update was SP2 for Vista.

So I let it install. After the PC rebooted SP2 was installed, but, none of my games worked. Call Of Duty WAW, Call Of Duty 4, Prototype, Overlord, bionic commander each one of these games started to boot and then either shows me a blank screen, or crashes to desktop.

I found that there was later versions of my graphics card and my sound card so I updated both of these. It made no difference. I then uninstalled and re-installed Bionic Commander. Again no difference this game didn't work.

Anyone else had this problem? Anyone solved this problem. I really don't want to rebuild my PC, especially when I'll be doing that in a couple of months for Windows 7.

SLI 8800GTX
Quad Core
8GB RAM
X-FI fatality soundcard PCI.
Vista Ultimate x64.

Hello pmatthews05,
Have you tried a system restore ?, to a point before you installed service pack 2, just to confirm that it is the service pack that is causing the problem.
Give it a go and post your results, thanks.

Hi Stoney-nutz.
I went to look at System Restore just now. Unfortunately there is only one system restore point "26/07/2009 21:43:29 Install: Windows Vista SP2". This time stamp is from the second time I install Windows Vista SP2 after uninstalling SP2.

Crysis loads but the graphics are all screwed.
BattleField 2142 works!
Bionic Commander crashes at splash screen
"Faulting application bionic_commando.exe, version 1.0.25.12292, time stamp 0x562b029a, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 6.0.6002.18005, time stamp 0x49e038c0, exception code 0xe06d7363, fault offset 0x0001e124, process id 0x143c, application start time 0x01ca0faed923c902."
BioShock Works!
COD4 crashes at splash screen.
Message box Error during initialization:Create2DTexture($floatz, 1680,1050,0,114) failed:8876086c = invalid call.
COD5 Crashes at splash screen.
Faulting application CoDWaWmp.exe, version 1.5.1220.0, time stamp 0x4a5241f6, faulting module CoDWaWmp.exe, version 1.5.1220.0, time stamp 0x4a5241f6, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x002e0c2f, process id 0xfb0, application start time 0x01ca0fb001b3bcd2.
GTA IV Crashes
MessageBox GTA IV Fatal Error: RESC10: Out of video memory - please re-boot your system 3277209 3641344
Mirrors Edge Freezes at Splash screen - no message
Overlord II crashes before enter game
Faulting application Overlord2.exe, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x4a254d52, faulting module Overlord2.exe, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x4a254d52, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000cdc0d, process id 0xf40, application start time 0x01ca0fb0ec1df602.
Prototype crashes
Faulting application prototypef.exe, version 1.0.0.1, time stamp 0x49ef07ae, faulting module prototypeenginef.dll, version 1.0.0.1, time stamp 0x49ef9366, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00612818, process id 0x1460, application start time 0x01ca0fb10c31efa2.

I have more games, but that shows that the majority of them crash. All theses games worked fine before SP2.

Any ideas?

You could try looking for patches for those games. Maybe you could also roll back the sound and video drivers from device manager.

Unfortunately these games are patched to the newest version. Call of Duty WAW patch 1.5 was only released the other week, GTA IV updates as you load up the game if there are any new patches.

I upgraded my Sound card and Video card after I discovered the games wasn't working on Vista SP2. So rolling them back to a previous version wouldn't make any difference as they didn't work then either.

Trying to look for a common area it looks as if you are getting a memory access violation. 0xc0000005

This website explains it better but is for XP.
0xC0000005 Access Violation Error

As a diagnostic test turn off DEP.
Then run the programs that have not worked.
If this solves the problem let us know.
You will have to turn on DEP again to protect your computer.

Turning off DEP made no difference.

OK, this may or may not do a thing but it is what I would try to do before drastic measures.

Download brand new copies of the latest Video, Audio & Monitor Drivers for your OS.

I would try to do this on Safe mode.

Unistall the nvidia video drivers... don't forget to uninstall the PhysX drivers as well.

Uninstall the Audio drivers.

Uninstall the Monitor drivers as well

Run a registry sweeper of your choice to get rid of any instance of the drivers there.

Reboot, once on the desktop, go to the Device Manager and try to Update your drivers from there... make sure you save those fresh copies of the newer drivers on a folder that you remember.

If that fails, more drastic measures are needed... What I did after having some issues with Vista + games? Dual boot with Windows 7 x64... there is no game so far that I have not been able to play and I barely use Vista now. Win 7 does what Vista can do but much better

I have just realised my BIOS is out of date. I have version 1002 (18 months old) and the latest version is 1302 or something like that.

Because the next couple of days I'm working on my PC from home I don't really want to perform a bios upgrade just incase it stops my pc from working completely. By the weekend I'll be able to upgrade the bios. I'll post my results then.

Good luck with the update.