When I was trying to install Civilization IV Gold (and Beyond the Sword) on Windows Vista, I kept running into problems that weren’t addressed on all the websites I could find. The majority of the advice assumed that you were able to install the damn thing in the first place, and told you to download patches, updates, or change the properties. But I couldn’t get the damn thing installed in the first place, so the advice was completely useless.

But I did manage to succeed! Eventually! It turned out to be deceptively simple, despite the two-hour process I recorded here in my LJ. I’ve presented my solution here in the hopes that it may help one of you:

1. I created a folder on the desktop, and copied all the files from all 3 Civ IV CDs into it. They all need to be in the same folder - I put them in separate folders first, and that didn’t work.

2. I ran the Civ IV setup. It installed fine.

3. I created another folder on the desktop and copied all the files from both CDs of Civ IV: Beyond the Sword into it.

4. Running the Civ IV: BtS setup, it worked fine.

So if you can’t get it to install at all, try this. If you’ve manged to get it installed and can’t get any further along, look elsewhere because I have no answer.

If you’ve managed to get it installed and playable, feel free to post your solution on this post in the comments.