Windows 10 problem

DX11 provides same/better functionality. Even if EQ2 needs some DX9 functionality, it is already included in the installation package of EQ2 and there is basically no need to do it yourself without any guidance or recommendation from software company. And that was my question actually; why do you need to install anything yourself and why could the reason be not to include anything important in installation package?
It is much safer to download a fresh installation package and re-install the game following the installation guide in case you have problems or doubts about integrity of your installation.

The problem is that the exe looks for the dlls in the wrong area, adding them into the folder stops the problem in the tracks.

Once you add the files you stop getting the crashes that bring pop-up error message that the game is trying to look for a folder in some dev's workstation's hard drive G:\ back when the game was still run by SOE.

You don't get those errors? Good for you. For those who do, adding the files into the EQ2 folder fixes them.

And anyone who has any games installed made prior to windows 7 has windows 9.0c installed in one version or another on their PC. That is neither here nor there.

And why developers don't want to do this for users? Seems like an easy thing to do. Any idea?

Why don't you ask them?

No, I'd rather not, because game works fine on my computers. I'm not going to ask questions like "can you please tell me why your product is not running on a computer of who knows who". I'd rather ask you since you advocate something unusual, undocumented and unexpected

And I'm going to ignore your question because I find your whole attitude pretty crass.

I also told you the information is out there if you want to search, I'm not about to search for you.

So we will leave it at that.

Sort of a weird thread to end up in a flame war.

The product is updated every week. It is not like an old installation package that needs a special attention.

As far as I can recall DX9 was included in the install when the game was available on CD/DVD, but was dropped when the game became a download only. I can only guess that the assumption by the developers was that DX9 was easily available from MS and up till June 2010, DX9 was being updated frequently, so it was probably less hassle for the developers at that time.

It was.

Guys, come on, he's been here 5 minutes and has totally installed like 3 games in the past. Clearly he knows better than literally years worth of the same advice fixing hundreds of players crashing issues...

But of course he does, and if his EQ2 ever crashes (and it will) he won't admit it.

While the newer versions of DirectX may work, mostly, there is no guarantee that they will be 100% compatible with old apps. EQ2, despite getting updates every week, is still an old app that relies on old technology. I suspect that some of the DX calls that it uses were depreciated or even eliminated in newer versions of DX. But, this shouldn't be a problem because the various versions of DX are supposed to coexist peacefully. The installers for those versions may well be another story.

That is my 2cp worth. I am not a tech and have done no development in over 10 years, so I am sure that there is more to the story. Perhaps a kind and helpful dev would enlighten us further?

I know I still have crashes with EQ2, but not nearly as many after I used a clean uninstaller (reverting to the default Windows 10 video driver) on my video drivers and then reinstalled the recommended version for my video card (eliminating a beta version that was also installed). While I do still get game crashes, I would say that they are 10% of what they used to be.

I have a PCIx card... but it wont work in this desktop... I checked with Acer and it needs version b or 2, something like that. I have ordered more ram, I need it for other things anyway. Made certain I ordered what will work.

Oh, I found that by sliding the letterbox slider control, I can raise the height of what I can see. So thats an improvement.

Wont let me. I tried full screen, and then the computer started beeping... a popup said I was almost out of ram and I needed to close something. Only thing open was EQ II.

Okay... the ram I bought doesn't work with the el-cheapo ram that came with this machine, soI took out the cheap stuff and I am just using good ram. I'll buy the same good ram when I can next afford it.

I get full screen wde now, but its not in Full Screen. I can see the windows taskbar. The overall game view is a larger part of my computer screen now.

DirectX 9.0c runtimes fix a lot of EQ2 problems. The game was written for DirectX 9.0. Hell, it was written for DirectX 4.0 probably. Putting these files cannot possibly hurt and generally helps.

Clearly you've never used a brand new nVidia driver on a 4 year old graphics card. Crash crash crash crash crash! Companies like Microsoft and nVidia stop testing on older configurations and just expect you to use the newest games, the newest hardware, etc.

Windows 10 Error: A better version of DirectX is already installed. You cannot use this installer.

You are familiar with SOE/Daybreak Games? Where the customer is OFTEN on their own to find solutions?

If only that worked.

Just update directx

That's DirectX 11. Try reading.