Lately, in between school work, jobs, sports, ect, I've barely had any time to play BW. Towards the end of the summer, I wasn't playing nearly half as much as I had been for ~6 months during the last school year. Playing 5-6 games a day and watching tons of vods, was a thing of the past now, and I was no longer obsessed. Even when school started, for the first month I had no motivation to play or watch any form of starcraft.
However, as time passed, I've had quite a few moments when I've really wanted to play. (drug withdrawl anyone?) So 2-3 weeks ago, I brought my flash drive with all my maps and replays to a friends house that I was staying at for a weekend. I ended up playing him, his brother, and a few computers at once for some fun, nostalgic, and brutally one-sided games. (These were the people that I had learned the game of starcraft from, close to 9 years ago.) And though smashing them continuously was a fun time, I couldn't get on battle net to play any challenging games due to his router settings. I probably wouldn't have played anyway since I felt it would be very rude to play by myself and not include him, even though he is my best friend and probably wouldn't mind.
Anyway, getting back on track, I came home with a renewed interest to play some good games on bw. To my horror, I realized I had left the drive with all my maps, replays, and files hooked into my friend's guest computer. He lives close to a half hour away, and I have no way of getting down there until I have a free weekend. I figured I would have to go retrieve my original disc to reinstall (this was at a different friend's house.) and I would have to redownload the good maps. This wasn't a big deal, I had originally thought, but just my luck, my computer started having problems.
[1] Whenever I try to load an excutable, I get a message "c:\(directory here)\(appliaction here).exe is not a valid Win32 application." and the program refuses to load. This applies to starcraft, windows media player, steam, aim, itunes, ect ect. Even when I try to download an application from the internet I get the message. The only programs that work for me are the old internet explorer (not the newest one, I never updated) and GOM player (but only when I right click on a file and "open with gom player") I've tried running virus scans but I get the same message, and I've googled it a million times and I can't find any spesific help. I want to reformat but there are a ton of files I need for school related things and I haven't had the time to move all my things to flash drive(s).
This prevents me from playing bw, chatting online, and basically any computer function that isn't basic internet use. Any advice or referals to a good site would be greatly appreciated.
[2] This brings me to my second question. With extremely limited bw time, I've been losing my mechanics and overall skill. The only times I get to play are after school in the various labs, and occasionally on my brothers computer. Unfortunatly, my brother won't let me install chaos or iccup launcher on his computer, and at school I have no way of using battle net. My only options are single player or high lat bnet. So my main request is for any single player maps or micro maps that I can do while on my own to keep from losing hand speed or muscle memory.
I have a pack of micro maps but there are very few single player versions. People might say "the only way to get better at micro is to do it against other people." but the few maps that I do have access to have all really helped me with general unit usage. The only thing is, they get very repetitive and boring. If I had the time, I could make my own maps by just making real game situations and running ai scripts, but as I said, I have very limited access to bw so I don't want to spend it doing tedious work with units and triggers on the maps. If anyone has a micro mappack or even a single map, and would be kind enough to let me download it, anything would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
So to conclude, I'm unhappy with my lack of bw and I'm plagued by computer troubles. With limited freetime at this time of year, it just makes it even harder to figure out the problems I'm having. So if someone could give me a good place to look for computer help or some maps to keep my interest in bw in the small time I have, you would be a savior.
Just a few last things to clarify to avoid needly questions;
Yes, I have tried running a virus scan, tried running in safe mode, and tried searching on about 10000 different computer sites to figure out the problem.
No, I have almost no computer expereince other than the essentials and no I have not called tech support yet (I'm not fond of being on the phone for 3 hours waiting for a response.)
Yes, I have tried playing against computers to keep my build order and mechanics in mind, but I have started to develop bad habits by continually doing this.
If you took the time to read this, I really do appreciate it and if you can help, I would give you my ever lasting love. If you didn't read it, then I don't blame you : )~