LEGO Creator LEGO Creator "This program can only run as a an ActiveX control" error on start-up

[Ben24x7]

QUICK SIDE-NOTE BEFORE I BEGIN: Despite this issue, LEGO Creator is still somewhat playable. While this bug makes LC impossible to play in certain Compatibility Modes, it is a (seemingly rare) issue that makes the game impossible to experience/play the proper way it was intended, but can be circumvented by running the game at other Compatibility Modes (which makes the game buggier as a result).

 

 

 

Recently I've been trying to get old LEGO games working on my new Windows 10 laptop, and I just about managed to get LEGO Creator running.

Unfortunately, I ran into the same bugs most people get when trying to run LC on a modern computer: No audio (aside from User Interface sound effects), vehicles under the player's control won't move unless the mouse cursor is constantly moving in the view-port, etc etc.

 

Now, I already knew how to fix this, because previously I got LEGO Creator to run on my old x86 Windows 10 laptop. All I had to do was set the Compatibility Mode of Creator.exe to "Windows 98/Windows ME" (it fixed the aforementioned bugs on my old laptop)...

...however, this resulted in a new problem I didn't encounter on my old laptop:

 

 

 

The LEGO Media intro plays normally, but upon reaching the loading screen, the error "This program can only run as a an ActiveX control" pops up on-screen. Closing the pop-up doesn't close the loading screen, leaving it looping indefinitely, and the game never starts.

 

This bug only occurs if I run the game in "Windows 98/Windows ME" Compatibility Mode (or less), regardless of whether I'm running it as an administrator or disabling full-screen optimisations. Essentially, trying to fix the game under the correct Compatibility Mode makes the game impossible to run.

 

Unfortunately, because nobody here has encountered this problem before (or, at least, nobody has made a topic about it), there's currently no work-around for this. For all I know, this may be a problem EXCLUSIVELY for my new laptop. That said, if anybody has any suggestions for stuff to try (in order to see if it fixes the problem), let me know.

 

 

I'm also not 100% sure what ActionX is. I mean, there are "ActiveX control" (".ocx") files included in my LEGO Creator install (both in the main "CREATOR" folder and the "CREATOR/3D Control" folder), but Google-ing "ActionX controls "can only run as an ActiveX control" " turns up information about a Microsoft-exclusive framework that is still supported in Windows 10 (albeit through Internet Explorer - Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX ) and a lot of information/videos about THAT is about how to activate ActionX add-ons in Internet Explorer, but not in other applications.

Admittedly, the above is likely incorrect, as I've never heard about ActionX before, I know nothing about it (or computer frameworks), and just skimmed through the information/videos I found just in the hopes of finding a solution that would help.

 

 

 

A FEW THINGS WORTH NOTING (which may help to narrow down the root of problem):

Spoiler

 

- Uninstalling and reinstalling the game from scratch didn't fix the problem

 

- Because my new laptop doesn't have a built-in CD-Rom drive, I was using an external USB CD-Rom drive to install the game. I highly doubt this caused the problem in the first place, but might as well point it out.

 

- The "This program can only run as a an ActiveX control" error pops up if the game is run in Compatability Mode "Windows 98/Windows ME"  OR LOWER.

 

- The "This program can only run as a an ActiveX control" error also pops up if you try to run "3D Control/ss3dlego.exe", regardless of compatibility settings (even on my old laptop).

 

- When installing the game on my OLD laptop, I let it install the game in the default "C:/Program Files (x86)" directory. When installing the game onto my NEW laptop, I told the installer to install the game on my laptop's non-default Harddrive "D:/" and in a custom folder instead of the normal "Program Files (x86)" folder directory.

Tomorrow, I'll try and reinstall the game on my new laptop, albeit with the default installation directory, and see if that helps.

 

 

(Also, sorry if this support post is missing information, it's getting late while I'm typing this up, and I just want to get this posted. If you need more details/more specifics, I'll try and update this post as soon as possible. Thanks.