pidgen.dll missing when installing Age Of Empires III

I've recently acquired the 3 CDs required to install & play an old Game, Age of Empires III, officially said run with Windows XP and earlier. But it can be run under Windows 7, though many have difficulties: a small number of reports describe successes, and think that those who are successful don't bother to publicize it.

Onto my problem. Having overcome "setup.exe is not a valid Win32 application" or however it read, by cleaning the playing side of CD1, I reach entering the key, after which a window appears titled 'invalid product key' (which I have checked a number of times) message saying: "Error loading the PID Generator DLL. The DLL could not be found! Please make sure the file is available in the installation directory and try again". When I trying the said file (pidgen.dll) to my HDD, it says 'file cannot be found' after looking like it has started some copy operation. That is with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit I've tried compatibility mode for XP, and 'Run as Administrator' (for setup).

I have also tried installing on XP (different PC) and it progresses far into the installation before I get a repetitive please insert Disk 2 message.

Can anyone tell me tell me how to install on Windows 7 (without reference to the rubbish shot-in-dark, I-don't what's wrong-but-we-would like you to waste-a-day trying out-these microsoft offerings)

Idiot
21.February.2016

HP Pavilion dm4-1050ea - i5 430M, 8 GB RAM - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Interesting....

Well, I am sorry for insulting anyone.

I had already done a web search (many in fact) before I started this thread or topic, located a copy of the file named pidgen.dll, downloaded it, and scanned it for malware (AVG free) then copied it both to C:\local disk\windows\system32 and C:\local disk\Program files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III (I had to create the last directory)[as I understand it this is the procedure for installing this file - another internet search result], but the game still would not install - same thing. I did notice a peculiar looking thing, the pidgin.dll I downloaded is not the same size (being ~ a third smaller) than the one on the game CD1

I will try another copy of pidgin.dll from a different source.

I have an update: eventually, I installed the game on my XP system an it appears to play ok (have't tried all options). I ha problems consistently reading the CDs which did not happen on my W7 mine (HP Pavilion dm4), so I deduced that there is a problem with the CD player in my old XP machine.

Idiot
23.February.2016

The version of pidgen.dll which I downloaded and copied to my c:\Windows\System32 folder on my W7 system is the identical size (same number of bytes, about 24KB) to the one I found on my XP system so I assume the files are identical. This leaves unanswered the question 'why is the file named pidgen.dll on the AoE III 1st install CD a different size (~39KB) ?' different version, maybe ? that shouldn't make any difference as the smaller file is certain to be the same or later version.

Idiot
23.February.2016

Hi Boris,

Thank you for your interest in this topic

My folder Computer\Local Disk\Windows\System32 does contain the files
mfc42.dll (and mfc42u.dll)
pidgenx.dll
pidgen.dll (24KB, because I downloaded it and put there manually having read about a similar issue on a WinXP system)

note: the folder C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 does not appear to exist on my W7 computer

I believe that the installation process may be finding the 39KB pidgen.dll on the CD and therefore does not look for it in Computer/System Disk/Windows/System32, but for some reason it cannot read/open this .dll (although this suggestion is not what it says in the error message). Further, I then hypothesize that making a copy of the CD CD1 but omit the 39KB pidgen.dll would cause the installation process to look in the HDD folder where it actually resides (or maybe copy the CD and replace the original 39KB version with the 24KB version). Any thoughts on that chain reasoning ? (or anything else in fact ?)

Idiot
29.February.2016