It's Windows XP. And the only thing it does is when I put in the cd, instead of saying "play game" it says "install". Same thing happens when I go throgh the start menu. It has me completely baffled.

My PC updates aoutomatically. Once week it installs updates. But I'll check.

Will do. Oh, and Monk. I just downloaded the newest Installer, and still no luck.

Okay, what happens if you launch Sins of a Solar Empire.exe after a reboot?

Also, after installing do regedit and scroll to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Dregnin.net\sins

You should see a bunch of registry entries, including the install path and version info.

After rebooting, check it again.

What Anny is saying is.....

After you've installed the game, perform the following steps:

(btw...be careful when in the system registry, do not ever delete/change anything in your registry if you're "not exactly adept with PC's"  )

1.  Navigate to the system registry editor (START >> RUN >> REGEDIT >> ENTER)

2.  Check the "tree" on the left and expand it (along the proper "branches") until you get to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Dregnin.net\sins

and as Annatar has pointed out, you should see various data in the fields.

3.  Re-boot your machine, then check the registry entries again.

That's Annatar's advice step-by-step for the "not exactly adept with PC's"....

By the way.....

Is the account on this PC which you're installing SINS through a "limited" user account by chance?  If so, please re-isntall SINS using the administrator account, or by right-clicking on the installer and selecting "runas".

thanks,

the Monk

You can shut down and power it back up, or you can just Restart. Same thing in the end

Basically, I wonder if something is messing up your registry. If the game does not show up as installed every time you restart your PC, that makes me think the registry is getting wiped, because that's how stuff recognizes that it's installed in the first place

Edit: You still didn't answer what exactly happens if you navigate in Explorer to where you install Sins and launch Sins of a Solar Empire.exe after you restart your computer (when it doesn't show up as installed). Could be important

OK. Well I retyped the "C:\Proggram Files\ etc. etc." into the "run" application on my PC and I got a list of a whole bunch of different folders and stuff. Is that progress or am I still up a paddle with no creek? I mean....well, you know what I mean.

I can do that, but last night, after I found the thing in "run" app.... I found a link that said "Sins of a Solar Empire MCE (Shortcut)" And I kclicked on it. For the record I tried the one that just said Sins of a Solar Empire and the
Sins Launcher, but neither of them worked. The MCE thing did though, so I moved it to my desktop, or rather, made a shortcut for the shortcut. Is this OK? Or did I just rip a hole in the time space web?

Awesome. Thanks you guys. You were all a big help.