Cactus Crashing in D2 Root

[dariustriplet]

I'm trying to run Cactus on Windows 11 (which I understand is not supported). I set it up by:
- Installing D2 1.00
- Copying the contents of 1. Filesinto C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo 2\
- Run Cactus.exe

The splash screen runs, but when I click "Enter Sanctuary" it sits there for a minute on a white screen, then crashes. Strangely, when I run Cactus outside of the D2 root (e.g. from where I extracted the .7z), it runs without any problems. I ran both installers that Cactus shipped with, and they both said I was already up to date on those libraries.

I understand that Cactus isn't supported on Win11, but is there some way to capture logs/errors before it crashes? I suspect that it's cranky about some configuration issue, but can't tell what the problem is when it just whitescreen->closes.

 

[fearedbliss]

You can try running Cactus in admin mode since you are running it inside a Windows protected location. Additionally after installing D2 you should delete any files not required and make the directory look like the recommended layout in the cactus instructions. It may work without doing this but for best results it’s better to only include what’s necessary.

As you mentioned, Windows 11 isn’t supported so support will be limited. Also the next version of Cactus will be Linux only so I would recommend thinking about switching to Linux in the long term.

 

[dariustriplet]

Thank you! I reinstalled the game to a non-protected directory (Desktop\Diablo II) and it works great. I did have to manually run Game.exe once (to get past Windows "not a recognized publisher" message), and it's working now. The stickied thread makes sense now, but it may be worth adding a bit about how the CD's default installation path (C:\Program Files\Diablo II) requires running Cactus as admin.

I installed Singling, and it's definitely working (can use players x, launch multiple clients), but the no-cd isn't quite working right. It runs if I mount the virtual play disc, but otherwise gives me a "no CD" error. I've had this issue using no-CD for years, so dunno if I keep misconfiguring something.

 

[fearedbliss]

Yea I think you may be doing something incorrectly. The No-CD fix has been included with the base Cactus files for about 13 years now with no issues, you don't need Singling to already have that active.

As for adding any additional Windows specific instructions, that won't be necessary since all Windows instructions and the Windows version of Cactus will be completely removed from the Cactus project. It will be Linux only and thus those instructions are no longer relevant.