The game is almost unplayable as V1.1, download patch V1.4 and install that and see if that helps.
Are you installing off a disk or a download. If it's a downloaded version sounds like it may be corrupt.
Also install the direct X 9 that comes on the disk, this has caused problems for others.

Uninstall the game and reinstall it as found in this link:
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/foru...045/m/4351073726/p/1

Hope this helps

Thank you so much for the help. I uninstalled SH4, re-installed from the CD plus the Direct X on the CD. Rebooted installed the patch. Rebooted again, in other words I followed all the instructions in the post from the link you provided, except that I cannot install it in the root of C drive, as I do not have enough room on that drive. I started the game. Intro's were fine, then after the game loaded, I just had a black screen, and the PC crashed. I think I'm going to give up on this.... it's driving me nuts.

Hello grumpfuttock,

Try going to Silent Hunter\Data\Movies and deleting the intro movies and see what happens.

Grump....Don't give up....I went through nearly a month (or more.... ) before I got it to work. There were times I nearly punched the screen out, but I made it work, and believe me... it was worth it...!!!

Grump The game will run fine in a drive other than C mine is in D for the same reason.
Open the game with SH4.exe not SH4.gu. That has caused game crashing problems for others.
Sounds like we are making progress, Hope you stick with it as nohunt says "it's worth it."

If you think getting it to load is driving you nuts,
wait till you get it running and come across some of the evil escorts.

Magic

Just an after-thought and, you may have already done this but, try disabling any virus/malware scanners that are running before you install the game.
Like Magic says, don't throw in the towel. Patience and persistence is the order of battle here. Think of it as "You Vs. The Machine" and, The Machine is not going to defeat you.

Many thanks to you guys for your help and encouragement. I have fitted the PC with a hardisk drawer. I have another harddisk with Win 7 the last Beta version. I will try installing SH4 on that, in the root of C: and play around with it there, and see if I get more joy. I wish I had discovered this forum earlier, I have had the game for 2 years without having any success, and have had to use my old SH2 for my underwater kicks.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Have a nice weekend.

Good to see you're plunging on..!!!
Doesn't that Win7 Beta "self-destruct" after a certain period of time..?? It'd be a shame if stuff you put on there went up in a puff of digital smoke....

groumpfuttock what happened after you deleted the intro movies?

Success- well sort of ! I installed Silent Hunter4 V 1.0 from the CD into the root of C: on the HD with Win / beta. When I installed it I chose to install everything including Direct X 9C. However I could not start the game, I was told file D3 something or other.dll could not be found. I then found the Direct X setup file on the SH4 Cd, and installed Direct X again. Rebooted and this time SH4 started. It worked wonderfully ! Really nice, and as I was told well worth the effort!
I then tried to install the patch V 1.4 which I had downloaded from Ubisoft. It wouldn't install, telling me that Silent Hunter 4 wasn't installed on the PC. I am now going to try again. Now the problem I need to solve, is what is the problem with Win XP.

Oh and Yes, the Win7 beta will stop functioning sometime next spring. Hopefully by that time, I will have SH4 running in XP. I will not be buying Win 7, although it is much better than Win Vista, a fair amount of my treasured software will not run on it or Vista, and I refuse to pay a fortune to ugrade the stuff that won't run, it would cost me a fortune ! Which I am not willing to pay, just because Microsoft brings out a new OS that isn't compatible with software bought in 2006.

Yooperbacker----
I am afraid to say that by the time I visited the forum, and read your suggestion, I had already deleted SH4 from my Win XP hard drive.