RagnarokSam

I believe the video file you have highlighted in your screen shot is the standard A3 background animation, and not the video for the gold cab that SYNTHSPC had asked about which has more of a magenta/purple-ish hue to it as seen in polivosm's post. It doesn't appear to be present in your screenshot either.

Good news! I resolved my issue of getting SpiceTools to launch the game data on my problematic desktop, but not in the way I expected.... - First thing I did was reformat the desktop with a clean install of Win 10 Pro (ver 21H1), then reinstall the game data using the provided directions. Surprisingly, I was still unable to launch the game and left with a log that looked mostly the same as before (still showing EXCEPTION ACCESS VIOLATION). - Next, I ran windows update and downloaded all available updates. After, I ran Spice.exe again, but had the same result. - Finally, I downloaded Lenovo's update utility (this pc is a Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p, got it on eBay for under $100) and pulled all additional driver and bios updates that weren't available from Microsoft. After the the bios install completed and the pc rebooted, I launched Spice.exe again, and to my surprise, it boots perfectly. So, if anyone else ever comes across this post with the same issue, maybe try updating drivers and bios from your pc manufacturer. That's what ended up working for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sure! It's the script posted on this page: https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-18xx-19xx-2xxx

Not identified, but hypothesized. Won't know for sure until I can reformat again and re-test, and if that is the "what", we still don't really know the "why". What exactly was SpiceTools trying to do or access that resulted in failure? Unfortunately it seems SpiceTools can't report that level of detail in it's logs, otherwise we'd have that answer already. Nonetheless, thank you for all your assistance and information so far, it's been a big help.

Hmmmm, alright, that definitely should narrow down what's going on at least. I can confirm I'm using data from the torrent also. Interestingly enough, I installed the same data using the same steps on a 3rd desktop just now, and it works perfectly. I'm now suspecting the issue on the 2nd desktop could be happening at the OS level since the 1st and 3rd desktops work perfectly fine. File and folder permissions for the install folder and all child files and folders are set exactly the same as the other desktops though. One noticeable difference on the 2nd desktop from the others is that after imaging the drive with Windows 10, but before installing the DDR data, I used a powershell script for removing unneeded bloat from the OS to quicken boot time, and now I'm wondering if that got rid of a dependency that SpiceTools might use that I'm not aware of. I guess if I needed I could re-image the desktop once more and not use that script, but I'd rather narrow down exactly what dependency is actually missing that SpiceTools is looking for if I could. Of course, I could be wrong about all of this as well... hard to tell.

I'm using the .dlls provided in the 2020020300 data. I'm copying (not cutting) the files from the modules folder into the parent folder where spice.exe is

I noticed the "stackwalker" section was similar to the previous log, but not exactly the same. The last time the issue was solely resolved by using the game data from 2020020300 data instead of the 2019 data I had previously been trying to use. I'm using that same 2020020300 data here however. I also see that this new log does not contain any of the "INVALID_HANDLE" lines that were present right above the EXCESS_ACCESS_VIOLATION in the previous log, which I'm guessing was the result using data that differed from what SpiceTools was looking for. I've tried removing everything and installing with the clean data from scratch again, but run into the same issue, so I'm not really sure what the best way to troubleshoot here is.

Alright, I tried to recrate the same steps that worked for my first desktop on my 2nd desktop, and can't seem to get the game to boot there. Tried to look at the log to figure out the point of failure, but couldn't figure it out. Anyone have any ideas? log.txt

Ahh, well that makes sense. Thank you for explaining!

Whoops, I worded that question poorly. What I meant to ask was, "Is there a way to launch into event mode by default at first boot, either via a batch file switch or an in game setting where I don't have to enter into the service menu and manually activate it each time?".

Okay, disregard this comment, I got it running this morning. I was confused about directions I was given earlier in the thread and had the 2019 data dump. Had to go to a friend's house and use their non-Verizon internet to download the correct data dump from the link in the original post. That said, is there any way to make the game launch in Event Mode?

Well, I spent a day looking over the directions and trying to get SpiceTools to launch DDR, but no luck so far. If anyone wants to take a look at my SpiceTools log and identify what mistake I'm making, I would be grateful. log.txt

Lol. To be fair, the phrase "Update Pack" is not used at all in the original post, and the wording of "please do not download any older data dump like the "20190903" or the "20200203" that was made available earlier than early September 2020. There is no more reason nor benefit to do so." led me to believe I shouldn't be downloading any data other than the data linked in the original post. Can you really blame a newbie like me for misunderstanding? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I get it now though.... I think. Still waiting for all that data to download with my free MEGA account to know for sure.

Ahh, okay, so essentially both need to be downloaded, and then newer data is copied over the corresponding parts of the old data. That makes way more sense. Thank you!

So, I noticed that the current data dump is only 92MB, but the data dump from the older thread was over 16GB. Also noticed the install walkthrough video featured several folders and files that don't seem to be included in the current data. dump. Am I missing a step in the directions somewhere?