Babyz Installation Fix

The files on this page are an attempt to help anyone who has a serious problem with Babyz crashes. The babyziso.zip is a large download of 165 megabytes, so only download it if your babyz CD is damaged and you really need it!

If you are unable to start your game and are getting all sorts of strange error messages such as "can't find Babyz.exe" or "Babyzrez.dll is missing" or "Verbassert not found" even though you can see all the files there in your game, and you've tried everything that's been suggested so far, then you may need to completely delete and re-install from scratch.

First of all, make a backup of your game onto CD, or save all the irreplaceable items in a temporary folder. Be particularly careful to make secure backups of all your adopted babyz! Now delete the Babyz game completely. To do this, first delete the whole Babyz folder either using Windows Explorer or My Computer, then remove the Babyz registry entry completely using Regedit:

Use the Start button, choose Run and type Regedit.exe. Press Enter. When Regedit opens, navigate by clicking on the crosses in the left pane till you get to
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PF.Magic\Babyz
then choose Edit Delete from the main menu. Do the same for
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mindscape\Babyz
Reboot your machine. Re-open Regedit.exe and check that the PF.Magic and Mindscape Babyz entries are no longer there. If they have re-appeared, delete them again.

Now re-install Babyz from scratch. For this you need your original CD or, if it has got too badly damaged, download this file:
The Babyz ISO image
As I say, this zipfile is 165 megabytes in size. Unzip it and either mount it as a virtual CD with something like Daemon Tools or burn it to a cD and use that. If you haven't a clue what a virtual CD or Daemon Tools are, just burn it and use it as a physical CD.

If you have Windows XP or Vista, you can run the game just to check it will start, but don't even try to adopt a baby yet. Download this small file
A fresh baby for your game, and a temporary sound fix.
and unpack it. Run the small .reg file by double-clicking on it. All it does is make sure the in-game sounds are turned off.
Now you can either make an Adopted Babyz folder and pop Cariad.baby into it before starting the game, or you can start the game and go through the full adopting process. If you are running Windows XP or earlier and the game still won't start, then I cannot think of anything else to do to fix it because you now have a clean installation, a clean registry and a new clean baby. If you are running Vista and it still won't start, check with other Vista users -- it may be that Vista puts some of the game files in a different place, such as My Documents.

When the game is actually up and running, if your OS is XP or Vista you will want to run Petza/Babyza. Go and fetch the latest version from Nicholas' site, and then you will be able to monitor your babyz' health, set the game speed, and have your sounds back on again.

Hope this helps

Carolyn

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