Hello!
When I exit the game, my computer will freeze and I hav to hit the reset button. I've tried alt-tabbing out of the game, then going to taskman to close the game and I have the same issue. I don't have this problems with any of the other games that are installed (HL2, Dreamfall, FEAR).
I am running a very new video card, an EVGA 7950 GTX. The drivers for this card are still very immature. I've tried beta drivers as well as the latest MS certified ones and Myst V still won't exit gracefully.
Here's the rest of my system specs:
PC Power and Cooling 510SLI
AMD FX-60 Watercooled w/Danger Den TDX Waterblock
EVGA 7950
2 WD 250 GB SATA in RAID 0
1 WD 360 GB SATA (my backup drive)
ABIT Fatal1ty SLI
2 GB OCZ Platinum
Dell 2405FPW
X-FI Elite Pro
Logitech Z2300 2.1 Speakers
Logitech G7 mouse
Thunder 8 mouse pad

I do have all the latest device drivers as well as the latest mobo bios & latest Plextor firmware.
Thanks in advance for any help.
I'd really like to get this fixed because I normally keep several work programs open while playing a game and it's rather inconvienent to have to reset my computer every time I play Myst V.

It makes no difference that your other games don't lock up your machine - EoA is a critter all unto itself!

Suggestions, to do in the order shown:

1. Unless you've done them all in the past week, do steps 1 through 5 under Overall Windows and Hard Disk Tune-up in Myst V: Clean Boot Install/Re-install With Win XP, then play EoA.

2. Do step 4 (closing background apps and processes) in Myst V: Miscellaneous Video Problem Fixes. Without rebooting, play EoA.

3. With that motherboard, you're undoubtedly overclocking a bunch and customizing BIOS settings out the wazoo. (Johnathan Wendel would be proud!) Write down what your current settings are, and set everything (!) back to OEM specs. Then reboot and play EoA.

4. Have you been installing the NVIDIA drivers exactly as detailed under Installing NVIDIA Drivers, "5. Here's the driver installation procedure", in Myst V: Installing Video Drivers With Win XP? Especially the latest NVIDIA drivers are *exceedingly* touchy about how they're installed, so if you haven't been using that procedure, install ForceWare 91.31 by so doing (including installing the latest end-user runtime release of DirectX 9.0c). Then play EoA.

5. Do step 2 (changing general and EoA video settings) in Myst V: Miscellaneous Video Problem Fixes. Play EoA after completing each set of changes.

6. Change your hardware sound acceleration settings. (Yeah, yeah, I know you've got an X-FI EP - but try it anyway!)
-- a. Click on Start > Run.
-- b. Type dxdiag in the Open: box.
-- c. Click OK.
-- d. Let the blue bar in the lower left corner of the main DxDiag window finish crawling and disappear.
-- e. Move the 'Hardware Sound Acceleration Level' sliders on all of the sound tabs completely to the left to the 'No acceleration' tick mark.
-- f. Close DxDiag, and play EoA.

If this solves the freezing problem, try moving the X-FI EP tab's slider to the right for increased acceleration, one tick mark at a time. (The first sound tab, Sound 1, should be the tab for your X-FI EP. If it isn't, find the X-FI EP tab.) Close DxDiag and play EoA after each slider move. If the problem re-appears after a move, decrease acceleration by one tick mark to the left, and leave the slider in that position when playing EoA.

7. Re-install EoA from a clean boot, as detailed under Installing and Re-Installing EoA, "6. Clean-boot EoA Re-install, Previous Installation" and "7. If you aren't certain whether vpd.properties is used by programs other than EoA, do the following:" in Myst V: Clean Boot Install/Re-install With Win XP.

BTW, you may be discovering that, given the opportunity, EoA will express an inherent dislike for certain RAID arrays....

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate your help. I've tried everything on your list & my machine is still freezing on exit.
You said that Myst does not like some RAID arrays. Will the game in any way damage the array? I was thinking about installing Myst on another hd. I have a couple that I could use. One is a SATA and the other is an IDE. I was thinking about using the IDE. That way, Myst would be completely off the SATA bus & just might behave itself.
I use Driver Cleaner to totally scrub drivers when changing them. I also tried un and re-installing the chipset drivers, changing the vid card to single GPU mode and tried playing in different resolutions.
Since I have lots of memory and a fast machine, I just may decide to alt-tab out of the game when I have other things to do on the comp. That will at least keep from having to hit the reset and possibly corrupting the array. Once I alt-tab out of the game, I can reboot the comp normally.
A couple of weeks ago, my UPS died during the night. I woke up in the morning and fould the comp booting, getting about 1/3 booted, the UPS would reset and the comp would reboot again. This went on for probablly a good 6 hours. The final result was a trashed array. I do backup all the time to a networked server so I didn't lose any work but I did have to reinstall XP and all my apps. So now, I'm running with a fresh install and the machine runs great...with the exceptopn of Myst V.
Like you said "

It makes no difference that your other games don't lock up your machine - EoA is a critter all unto itself!" Thanks again-Ed

No, EoA shouldn't damage a RAID array.

After running Driver Cleaner, do you reboot, allow Windows to install a default video driver, then install the new driver? If you run Driver Cleaner and then immediately install a different driver without rebooting, strange problems can result.

"The final result was a trashed array." Did you reformat and check both of the array discs for errors before re-establishing the array? (Refer to How to Perform Disk Error Checking in Windows XP. Another option is Norton SystemWorks 2006's Disk Doctor.) If not, you should keep your backups *absolutely* up-to-date...!

If the first 6 suggestions above don't help, try installing EoA to the IDE HD. This is best done from your Administrator account - not a Limited User or Power User account - and from a clean boot. Make very certain to correctly set all of the install paths, and double-check your entries for typos!

WoW!
Using the IDE drive fixed the desktop freeze!
I just got the pre-rc of Vista. Would you knon if MystV will run on Vista?
Thanks much!!!

Various sites (for example, ieXbeta) have reported that EoA will run on Vista. It's early yet, however, and by the time Vista is released, who knows?

Yes, EoA run fine on Vista. I had to run it in Comaptibility Mode though. Since EoA likes to store saves in a folder other than MyDocs/MyGames, Vista gets a little bit protective and won't run Aoe until you give it special permission.
Should you happen to install Vista and you are using a 7950 you'll need to install a single-core card in order to get Vista installed. Then, you can put your 7950 back in & Vista will find it correctly. Hope this helps!