I guess the largest battle is getting it to work!

One thing I find causes an exception in the launcher is PeerBlock. It flashes, and PA gives an unhandled exception error saying it can't contact a remote server or something. Turn peerblock off, and it's fine.

Try turning peerblock and any firewalls off and see if that helps.

One simple test would be to reinstall the OS.

This worked already several times for some users here. They tried all kinds of things.
So, before you get a shock, installing Vista again and all that, just make a backup, there are several really good backup programs out there for free, or at least 30 day trial.

I would recommend, you make a backup of your system, then install Vista new. Update all drivers, install PA and see if it is working now. If not, just play the backup back. No harm done.

One thing that I noticed.. the firewall means the firewall that actually does the firewalling. And yes, there could be more then one! And yes, could be the firewall in a hardware device like a router. And yes, even your ISP could block stuff.. Adding PA to your Windows firewall does not update or change any other firewall which you need to set manually. And the whole firewall thing is not only a PA alpha problem but a gaming problem as a whole.

I know I said I wasn't going to darken these halls again but your rant on laptops kinda made me get up on my soapbox again. I hope you do not take offense as I don't mean any. The way your putting it makes it sound like I could run them on my OQO's, which we both know I couldn't. I do run TA,TACC and TAUCP on them however. Even my old Dell xps m-2010 has a real vid card on it and not an integrated one and as I said before it's 7 years old. I've been inside it as it's been thru 3 vid cards over the years. Have I dragged out the gamer yet to check those settings yet, um no. Why because when I was digging round in it checking this n that to attempt to make this run I looked in those display devices and outside of the invidia graphics card I saw nothing else no 'GPU'. Drivers are up to date BTW as it was said before to make sure they were. As far as those goodies nothing has arrived. I had to beg just to get my code to Download the alpha in the 1st place. I didn't think much of it because with so many peeps it's easy to loose site of 1 or 2 and after asking it was quickly sent. I'd imagine that the sound tracks are downloads as well, no links have been sent. None of that stuff really mattered too much to me. When I jumped in about this time last year it merely stated exclusive commanders at different levels. At the $90.00 level I jumped in at,which at that time was top level, it had all commanders . So I picked it thinking these commanders ,alpha and beta, had different skills the theta didn't. I've have since given up on this game and decided to wait for beta then attempt again and if once again it crashes, and I think it will , then I will wait until it is as you say finally 'optimized' and what I think will be called theta and try again. Finally if at that optimized level I still am crashing then and only then I guess I will ask to be refunded. Do I want a partial refund? No not really I was happy to fund this project as I thought It is a great idea and a nice evolution of the game concept. That being said if I can't play it even after this magical optimization then it was a waste of funds to me hense why I would ask to be refunded. Is a new system desktop or laptop in my future. while I love the new fang books at this time I just can't swing 1 besides I hardly spend time on most of these dozen systems I have now. So to get yet another seems unlikely and unneeded.

P.S. Whom ever posted the firewall comments. Indeed the wisest comments. But if it works fine for other games then we can assume it is set fine can't we. So yes a wifi router, cable modem and ISP each could indeed have one of their own besides the one on each pc . There's very little one can do about those external ones but as I said if they are working well with other games then why not here. Further wouldn't this cause a pop up note claiming that I could not connect and not the crash I'm having? After all it connects fine to do the updates and such. So I'd surmise that all is well. Not that I know a darn thing. It crashes only after I click the play button and the new bigger window opens.


Again Thanks to all who attempted to help. You are all indeed very bright people! Brighter than I will ever be because I can't even make it work and all of you have. I may, if I ever get time, put windows 7 on that gamer and attempt it all over again just to see if this is the issue but it shouldn't be.Also again I hope I've offended no one as this has not been my intent. I've already deiced my path and this is what I will do.GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

Keep Smilin Bill

Can you please post a dxdiag report?
See sxx's signature for a how-to: viewtopic.php?p=748224#p748224.