Ok, second re-install worked beautiful...
chakkerz
OK, re-installed of the disk: 1) faster install 2) starts quickly 3) as soon as i update to the current version it fails to run with no disk in the drive is there something dodgy about the 1.04.022 as well as 1.04 patch?
PS i disabled UAC, made no difference. Going with the re-install option (hoping that will sort out the lack of scenarios vs the number indicated in the manual). AND no, there were no errors during the install but the DVD drive was making odd sounds ...? There are no significant scratches on the disk, two or three faint ones (i'm guessing the disk came of the holder in shipping. No grand canyons :)
OK i have a series of issues / questions (i will post separately as i go): IF i don't have the disk in the drive when i start the game all i get is a blank screen and a lot of hard drive activity. But after 3-5 minutes i still have nothing on my screen. When i Alt+Tab out, and go back i get an error from a Visual C++ Runtime, telling me that the Runtime requested the program terminate in an unusual way. I don't seem to have any ability to interact with the full screen game, other than