Can't install Zoo Tycoon 2?

Hello! I was and still am a huge fan of Zoo Tycoon, but Im having a big problem with the current download.
After downloading it, I start with the first step, opening up setup.exe. When the installation window pops up, after a few seconds it says: 

I tried:
-Turning Firewall off
-Turning anti virus off
-Downloading again

I have windows 10 and a lot of storage space.

Enaid wrote:Hello! I was and still am a huge fan of Zoo Tycoon, but Im having a big problem with the current download.
After downloading it, I start with the first step, opening up setup.exe. When the installation window pops up, after a few seconds it says: 

I tried:
-Turning Firewall off
-Turning anti virus off
-Downloading again

I have windows 10 and a lot of storage space.

Hello and welcome to the Forum @Enaid!

Did you use the program WinRAR for extracting the contents of the .rar? Also, try right-clicking on that setup.exe and choosing "run as Administrator". I also assume that you finished the download 100%?

The installation of the game itself should be straightforward, but we'll see. Good luck for now!

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

Hello and welcome to the Forum @Enaid!

Did you use the program WinRAR for extracting the contents of the .rar? Also, try right-clicking on that setup.exe and choosing "run as Administrator". I also assume that you finished the download 100%?

The installation of the game itself should be straightforward, but we'll see. Good luck for now!

Thank you!
I did use WinRAR and downloaded it 100% twice. Tried run as administrator too.

I just did something different and the game started playing...went into the ''Files'' folder inside, and double clicked on 'Startup.exe'. The game started without installing or anything and I haven't had any problems so far. It's weird but at least this is a temporary fix for me. Thought this might be useful for someone out there?

Thanks anyways! D:

Enaid wrote:Thank you!
I did use WinRAR and downloaded it 100% twice. Tried run as administrator too.

I just did something different and the game started playing...went into the ''Files'' folder inside, and double clicked on 'Startup.exe'. The game started without installing or anything and I haven't had any problems so far. It's weird but at least this is a temporary fix for me. Thought this might be useful for someone out there?

Thanks anyways! D:

Didn't think that was actually possible.    Thanks for sharing this! 

I am having issues as well.  Autorun wont run.  setup.exe tells me to run autorun and the fix above gives me a playable game but now sound.  Any ideas?  I even mounted the whole thing as an iso and it still does not work.  I am using WIN10 and my computer can more than handle this game and I'm not sure whats wrong.

Ɛɗιη wrote:Ok I'm just thinking out loud here but, is it at all possible that AntiVirus is giving you a hard time here?

Wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. The Sims 2-crack is even targeted by anti-virus software....

First thing I checked.  This is driving me nuts I can usually get stubborn things to install but this is stumping me 100%

Now I'm getting the same error as above.(the failed to complete error)

OK Update.  I managed to stop getting the 1628 error but I'm back to getting the cannot use startup.exe to install I have to use autorun.exe but the autorun just will not work no matter what i do.  Any guesses?

Yep Admin profile, run as admin, tried every single compatibility thing.  Tried rebooting, redownloading, and reunzipping.


Update:  I think the issue is with the Autorun.exe and the Setup.exe Just use the autorun.exe to install a different game and it's having no issues.

Apokolips wrote:Yep Admin profile, run as admin, tried every single compatibility thing.  Tried rebooting, redownloading, and reunzipping.


Update:  I think the issue is with the Autorun.exe and the Setup.exe Just use the autorun.exe to install a different game and it's having no issues.

I never foresaw that this game would cause so many troubles.    And yes, I myself installed the game on 3 systems with no issues. Edin also did the same.

Thanks for sharing this possible workaround! I will later on look at various other possible solutions, like renaming the folder where you extract the .rar contents to, or seeing whether any installed SecuROM or other DRM software can interfere with the game.

Apparently extracting the zipped contents to a folder on the desktop did the trick.  Weird, never came across this as an issue before but now I have another trick in my arsenal to get things to work, thanks!

Apokolips wrote:Apparently extracting the zipped contents to a folder on the desktop did the trick.  Weird, never came across this as an issue before but now I have another trick in my arsenal to get things to work, thanks!

Thanks for letting us know!