Game freezes at the end of a level when the screen turns white.

[JoeTheZombie]

Hi. I am playing Plants vs. Zombies on a standard user account in Windows Vista and the game freezes after a level when you get a new seed packet and the screen turns white.

I have found that the game works OK when played under an administrator account, but I will not give my children access to the administrator account. Is there a workaround?

[BobosPwn]

Maybe you could just set that particular program to have administrator access. Right-click the game and go to "Properties". Then go to "Compatibility" and tick the bottommost box.

[JoeTheZombie]

It's launched from Steam... there is no "compatibility" options in Steam. And, if you set Steam to launch in compatibility modes, you get errors.

[1nvisible]

Steam creates a process from an exe. So setting compatibility mode for that exe should work.

[JoeTheZombie]

Ok, so I found the Plants vs. Zombies executable in the common folder in the steam directory. I set it to compatibility mode and checked run as administrator, but now Steam says "this game is not available" when I attempt to play... probably because there is no way for Steam to tell Vista what the Administrator's password is.

[tsemple]

There is a problem with permission on Vista if you log in under multiple users. Here's a way to fix it:

1) Log in to your computer with an account that has administrative privileges.

2) Press the Windows Start Key and R (to open the run dialog).

3) In the open command box paste the following command based on your OS.
On Vista paste this command and click ok:
cacls "%ProgramData%\Steam\PlantsVsZombies\userdata" /E /T /C /G "Everyone":F
On XP paste this command and click ok:
cacls "%ProgramFiles%\Steam\steamapps\common\plants vs zombies\userdata" /E /T /C /G "Everyone":F

This will give the "everyone" user full permissions to all the userdata files.

[JoeTheZombie]

Thanks! Worked perfectly!

[dahzed]

Thanks a ton for this. I was having problems at the save point on my computer and couldn't figure it out. Ends up it was always when my wife was logged on. Great fix!! Now the boys and I are rolling again.

[Chain_Letter]

I'm having this problem as well. The tip posted by Popcap didn't help.

[coyoterys]

I too have now been getting the "failed to user write file" error. I've had this game for a year and never had any issue. Now when I try to buy from crazy Dave it crashes.

I tried tsemple's suggestion and it didn't work for me. I'm on Vista and no other users use my PC so it only has admin.

Guess there is no patch, seeing as this is a 5 month old thread. :(

[halibabica]

It must be related to the new patch they released. Other people are having similar issues.

[eeSock]

Yeah, a totally lame issue. I tried this fix listed by popcap, but it didn't work for me. Maybe it's that I'm running on Win7. Anyone had any fixes that worked?

[timakam]

There is a problem with permission on Vista if you log in under multiple users. Here's a way to fix it:

1) Log in to your computer with an account that has administrative privileges.

2) Press the Windows Start Key and R (to open the run dialog).

3) In the open command box paste the following command based on your OS.
On Vista paste this command and click ok:
cacls "%ProgramData%\Steam\PlantsVsZombies\userdata" /E /T /C /G "Everyone":F
On XP paste this command and click ok:
cacls "%ProgramFiles%\Steam\steamapps\common\plants vs zombies\userdata" /E /T /C /G "Everyone":F

This will give the "everyone" user full permissions to all the userdata files.


I have the same problem on windows 7! Please help me!!!

[JoeTheZombie]

cacls "%ProgramData%\Steam\PlantsVsZombies\userdata" /E /T /C /G "Everyone":F

copy and paste into command shell. works with win 7.

[timakam]

This didn't work! Damn! What should I do? Help please(