Well, for those interested or having a similar problem...
OK, I tried your idea TTK_86, but that didn't really help. In fact, I closed all non system processes and services and still wouldn't work. However, booting into safe mode made the installation work just fine..
Now the question is, why!? I'll have to look further into this, but before that, I'm going to make a backup of the current installation (including registry entries) so that I can easily fake install the game..
Thanks for the idea though, TTK_86.
[EDIT 11-12-07]
Ok, I can't figure out why it didn't work. So in the interest of helping those with a similar problem, I created an easy way to bypass the normal setup. Using NSIS, I created a new installer. In order for it to work though, you must copy the install cd to a folder on your hard drive. This installer assumes that the movies will also be run from the hard drive, so simply copy the movies from the other 3 cds to the data folder. Or you can skip that step altogether and edit your registry to have them run off the cd (steps for that below). After you've copied everything, place the NEW installer file in the same folder. You can safely overwrite the old setup.exe or simply replace the ffinst.exe. It's totally up to you. I personally deleted both and just placed this one in there.
After installing, you can safely delete the folder you just created. If you want to create a totally new install CD (like I did), there's more instructions at the bottom.
Here's the setup file:
http://rapidshare.com/files/68673231/Setup.exe (If that link dies, PM me and I'll either reupload it, or upload it to a perm server).
If you are running movies from the CD follow these steps:
- Start>Run (Or Windows+R on the keyboard)
- Type 'regedit' without quotes and click OK
- Navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII'
- In the right pane, locate 'MoviePath' and double click it
- Change the path to your cd drive + ff7\Movies\ (For example D:\ff7\Movies\)
- Click OK & Close
If you want to create a new install CD follow these steps:
- With the new installer, you do NOT need anything that is not currently in your installation (C:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII) folder. However, to make things super simple, I'll just explain what you need to make an easy new cd.
- Download the new setup file
- Rename it to FF7inst.exe
- Copy FF7inst.exe
- Navigate to the previously copied folder
- Paste and overwrite the old FF7inst.exe
- Copy all other CDs to this same folder overwriting everything as it asks
- Burn to CD
Optional (Deleting unneeded files)
- _ISDEL.EXE
- *.dll (meaning all dll files)
- *.bmp
- layout.bin
- *.cab
- SETUP.ini
- *.dat
- _INST32I.EX_
- directx (folder)
- drivers (folder)
- dxmedia (folder)
- SFMan (folder)
- Yamaha (folder)
- setup.ins
- setup.lid
- DATA.TAG
I hope this helps someone!