Problems With FFXI And Windower Loading DirectX

I restarted my computer (Laptop with windows 7 on it) right before trying to get on ffxi today. First off, windower wouldn't start up for me, when i hit the button to launch it all it did was start up the normal play online viewer, not saying that windower was enabled. So i tried to look around on the internet and couldn't find much, besides starting up ffxi in full screen mode through the registry editor. I tried to do this but when i hit the play button my screen started flashing black white and my desktop background. After about 5-10 seconds the play online viewer came back up saying, "Terminated as error occurred in FINAL FANTASY XI. Failed to initialize Direct 3-D. Please check that this computer has the requirements to run FINAL FANTASY XI.(-1)". I tried uninstalling DirectX and installing it again, which didn't work. Also tried the widget thing that makes Direct 3-D run, didn't work either. Also tried completely installing windower all over again, which also didn't work. The only thing that i can think of would be that ffxi drivers (if there are any) aren't working, or that i might have to completely uninstall and install ffxi again, which i'm trying to avoid doing as it took forever last time ;_;.
If anyone has any idea why this might be happening, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Forgot to mention the message saying "Failed to initialize Direct 3-D" showed up a long while ago. But I downloaded windower and windower has been running perfectly fine for me until now.

There could be a number of reasons. Here are a couple I can think of off the top of my head.

1. You need to update to the latest version of windower.

2. You need to download the Windows Vista/7 compatible play online version from playonline.com

3. Graphics drivers need to be updated with a Windows 7 compatible version.

Of course all these are null and void if you were running Windows 7 before in which case I suggest just trying to update Windows 7 completely before anything else.

If you have your FFXI disks maybe put them in and install the DirectX from that? I dunno.... :s I know they have some sort of walk-through for using FFXI on Windows 7 on the POL website because it's bitchy.

I did 1 and 2, and i tried to do 3, but for some reason my graphics driver's ***. It's been that way for a while now ,but ffxi's been running perfectly fine though. It won't let me install new drivers or anything, not really sure why... says i'm missing "MOM.implementation or any of it's dependencies" every time i go to try and update it.

I'll check that out. Hopefully i can find the disks :3. And thanks for the replies lol. xD

What graphics card and what version of Windows 7?

It's an ATI mobility radeon 3200 for the graphics card.
Windows 7 Ultimate if thats what you mean :3. I only do the mandatory updates because every time i do something unnecessary my whole computer screws up and I have to go through the whole process of resetting it back to an old backup which gets annoying :3.

Well I'd say do what Bart said then as ATI is foreign to me(never liked ATI) and as for the OS issues, I can only guess trying to run 32-bit on 64-bit hardware would cause screw ups like that with it.

yup, ATI. checked the website and did the catalyst install manager thing, but it wouldn't finish the update because MOM.implementation was missing or something like that. I had completely uninstalled everything beforehand too. I think i read somewhere it might be because I upgraded from vista to 7, but i'm not at all sure why it might be or what to do to fix it.

The latest drivers aren't always the best option.

You should NEVER update your graphic drivers unless you're trying to solve an already existent problem.. As a lot of times, updating graphic drivers will actually CAUSE a problem with something else.

I'd say downgrade your graphics drivers.. You said they been *** for a while, narrow it off to a month (as in it was fine in feburary, but not in march) and find the most recent drive that was only available in feb. (ignoring any drivers that were put out in march or later)

Make sure you uninstall the video drivers completely after finishing the download, when you uninstall you'll be prompted to restart, do so, then when your computers back up and running, install the drivers you just downloaded, and restart again.

I know most people these days think updates are extremely important and must be installed right then and there, but that causes a lot of problems.

Ok, trying this now. I'll be back in about 10 mins hopefully.
Thanks for all the help guys ^^;

Another good point, and something to add to it. Look for drivers from the laptop manufacturer if its not custom built. Laptop hardware is a little different from the norm and sometimes takes drivers certified by them.

I googled the card to see if i could find old drivers and one of those driver detective things came up. and it says that the graphics card driver's working perfectly fine, so now i'm completely confused :3

What's yoru card? And how far back do you need to go?

Gonna go get into AC2, I'll check back in about 10 mins and find them for you. Just make sure you tell me exactly what card you have and how far back to go.

card is Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series, had it wrong in the last post, sorry :3 and uhh... i guess i'd say all the way back to the beginning of December, maybe November to be safe. the problem with the MOM.implementation thing showed up when i upgraded from vista to 7.

After making such a big upgrade on the OS you should completely uninstall your video card etc and reinstall. Use a program like Driver Sweeper to make sure it's uninstalled fully. Let windows update itself on the new version before installing the specific video things.

Also, delete and redl the Windows 7 compatibility thing from SE.

Can't solve the problem by putting more stuff on top of it- have to go back to the source and fix it there.

Windows 7 thingy

Just uninstalled the drivers through catalyst. Restarting computer. brb

Okay, I can just let you pick the date... Anyways..

32-Bit
64-Bit

Yeah I know it says Vista, but it's the same thing as far as they're concerned.

Ok. Thanks to everyone lol. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this works. I'll post back in a bit.

Works great now :D

You're welcome. <.<

Hello,

I am having the exact same error, but this fix isn't working for me.

Any ideas why it may not be?

Thanks

The fix might be 1792 days old. There may be a more current solution now.