Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition won't launch in Origin

[Sunzyshy]

I contacted EA earlier about this game not launching, and it started to feel like an endless cycle of uninstalling, removing, manual uninstall of Origin, reinstall Origin, start Origin in admin mode, and just really getting nowhere.

I recently grabbed Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition on Origin. I install the game and after it installs, when I launch it, nothing happens. The game never returns any errors, and if I hover over the game box in Origin, the "Play" button goes gray and then lights up again, and never launches. The thing is with no error, I cannot figure out what it could be.

Similarly last summer, when I bought C&C The Ultimate Collection, Red Alert 3 did not launch at all, despite the demo on Steam worked perfectly fine (I went with the Ultimate Collection due to it being a better buy), that was solved by setting "-win" in the command-line, and the game launched.

I don't know why the games won't work out of the box, I'm frustrated trying to figure this out and I just want to enjoy my new game rather than solve problems or do this and that tech support tells me. Is that too much to ask. Any help would be appreiciated.

So far I tried...

• Launching the game
• Launching the game with Origin in admin mode
• Launching the game with compatibility mode on the game's exes
• Uninstalling the game
• Re-installing the game
• Adding Origin's folders to my Anti-Virus exceptions
• Manual uninstall of Origin
• Re-install of Origin
• Running the game in normal and admin mode

All resulting with no error and not so much as a "black" screen or a game launch.

[EA_Darko · Accepted solution]

@LittlemissNaomi@Sunzyshy

Sorry to see that you are having issues with the game. What works for some people is the following:

1) Open notepad,  copy and paste the following text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SteamPopCap\PlantsVsZombies]
"ScreenMode"=dword:00000000

2) Save as "fix.reg" in any folder

3) Go to that folder and then double click (open) "fix.reg". It will ask you to make changes to your system registry.

4) Launch PVZ

[Sunzyshy]

So I've been working on this for the past hour or so. I did this so far...

• I manually uninstalled Origin following this: Manually Uninstalling the Origin client
• Uninstalled Plants vs. Zombies and Deleted the Plants vs. Zombies game folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games
• Downloaded Origin from https://www.origin.com/en-us/download
• Right-clicked the Origin Setup, went to properties, Compatibility, and set the privilidge level to admin.
• Clicked Apply and OK
• Installed Origin
• Right-clicked the Origin icon, went to properties, Compatibility tab, and set the program to run as admin
• Opened Origin and logged in
• Red Alert 3 had to verify, so I let it do that
• I launched Red Alert 3 to make sure it worked the way it should (it did)
• Re-downloaded and installed Plants vs. Zombies from the My Games tab in Origin
• Launched game and it did not launch or return an error
• I did a clean boot following this: How to Clean Boot your PC or Mac
• Restarted my computer
• Launched Origin (still in admin mode)
• Played game
• Again, did not launch or return any error

This is everything I did, step by step! I have the Origin folders under exceptions on my anti-virus, I removed Origin, I reinstalled Origin, and even did a clean boot, and nothing, not even so much as a EA logo video. Nothing to say "this is working".

Please, help me get this game running. I tried everything I could think of and was suggested, and I do not want to contact customer support. I'm going to end up doing all that I did above all over again since that's what the rep wanted me to do too.

[LittlemissNaomi]

Did you ever figure out how to fix this?? I'm having the exact same problem, It was working like a dream and out of nowhere stopped launching. pls help

[EA_Darko · Accepted solution]

@LittlemissNaomi@Sunzyshy

Sorry to see that you are having issues with the game. What works for some people is the following:

1) Open notepad,  copy and paste the following text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SteamPopCap\PlantsVsZombies]
"ScreenMode"=dword:00000000

2) Save as "fix.reg" in any folder

3) Go to that folder and then double click (open) "fix.reg". It will ask you to make changes to your system registry.

4) Launch PVZ

[SnowieSimmer]

I'm having this issue as well, but I've never gotten the game to run. Tried your fix, @EA_Darko, but it didn't help (and now I don't know how to undo the changes it just made to my PC). I launch the game as is, just after it's installed, and it immediately crashes to desktop. Restarting/re-installing/repairing doesn't help. I tried running the exe in compatibility mode for windows XP, and it launches, but makes both of my monitors black out and flash and I have to close it through task manager. 

[EA_Darko]

@SnowieSimmer Interesting, that fix works for almost anyone I have seen having the issue. You could try setting a new registry value for "ScreenMode" and setting it to "0" so as to force the game to launch in windowed mode. 

[temmatijger]

It didn't work for me... I think it has to do with my computer being a 64 bit and the game being 32 bit and you can't change those settings

[EA_Blueberry]

I will be locking this post down though to avoid further necroposting. If you still need help with this specific topic please create a new post on our boards.

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@temmatijger 

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