Well, this is annoying. After posting my glowing review of Mirror’s Edge yesterday, I now find that I’m unable to start it at all today. I get an apparently somewhat common error of the old “has encountered an error and needs to close” message before it even gets past the flash screen. I followed the instructions posted on the official forums, and I do mean ALL the instructions, but to no avail. I decided to post on the forums there, but I am currently awaiting approval in the moderator’s cue. So I don’t forget after sleeping tonight, I am going to record everything I tried here.

Please note that after each step below, I restarted the system at least once.

1) I ran Driver Sweeper to clean out my old drivers (and inadvertently screwed up my USB controller somehow, but that’s another story. That, at least, is all better now.). I then installed the latest drivers for my NVIDIA 8600 from the website (version 185).

2) When that did not work, I tried the version 181 that is specifically designed to work with Mirror’s Edge. Still no luck.

3) I tried the rather odd fix mentioned on the forums of running the game in Windows 2000 compatibility mode with a couple of options checked. No luck running from either the .exe directly or from within Steam. I tried this again after each of the steps below failed.

4) I checked that I have the latest .NET framework (3.5) and reverted it to its original configuration via Add/Remove Programs, just in case it had been corrupted. When I tried to install the service pack for it, it gave me the same menu, so I’m assuming that the v3.5 I installed the other day came with the service pack. No success. Tried step 3 again.

5) I deleted a large number of temporary files from C:\Documents and Settings\[your login]\Local Settings\Temp (nothing newer than five days) and then disabled PhysX from Nvidia’s control panel. No change. Again I tried step 3.

6) I ran Windows Cleanup Utility msicuu.exe and searched for any old AGEIA phyx files, but found none.

7) I uninstalled the Daemon Tools cd emulation software but again was disappointed. Tried step 3 again.

8) I edited the DefaultEngine.ini file found in C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\mirrors edge\TdGame\Config so that the line bUseSound = TRUE now says bUseSound = FALSE. No change. I again tried step 3.

9) I followed Microsoft’s directions for disabling DEP system-wide, a process which involved directly editing a .ini file from deep within the Control Panel. When that had no effect, I also turned off my AVG Free antivirus. No change. I again tried step 3.

10) I downloaded the cracked version of ME from the site listed on the forums, renamed the original .exe file to Mirrors_Edge_bak.exe and moved the cracked .exe file to the Steam apps folder. When this failed, I tried step 3 again, just in case.

11) My next step will be uninstalling and reinstalling ME through Steam, but having deleted my local content, I will now need to re-download the files overnight. I will post my results tomorrow when I decide to mess with it again. Even if it allows me to play immediately after download as it did yesterday, I do not hold out hope that it will let me open the game again on this installation.

After all of this, the game now crashes before it even reaches the splash screen (rather than immediately after reaching said screen as it did a couple of hours ago). I also get the error message twice now (also new) unless I elect to send Microsoft an error report. EA has a wonderful way of turning the most potentially enjoyable activities into looming, time devouring monoliths of aggravation.