[ACM14850]

The problem(s) I'm experiencing may turn out to be a variant of similar ones that have been posted. One similar thread in the "Closed or Claim Fixed" sub-forum suggests that the problem is being examined for patch #1, but I wasn't able to find a "Logged Issue" for it. Maybe the information I'm providing will help; if not, sorry for opening another thread.

I've tried three times now to create a standard league using the "Major American League", and simulate about 20 years via Auto-Play to create history before I take over a team on a day-to-day basis. Each time, the simulation has failed to complete. The basic symptom is that the program just hangs; i.e., no visible progress in the Auto-Play dialog (stays on the same date or function). The first time I tried it, the simulation got through about a dozen years before hanging during an amateur draft. The second time, similar results. The third time, it only got through 12 days before hanging somewhere in the pre-season.

The steps I performed for the third attempt were as follows (more or less):
Launch program
"New Custom Game"
"Create Standard League"
"Major American League"
change league, sub-league and division names, randomize nicknames
1985 settings, no inaugural draft
all player pictures
starting year 1985
generate league
91% Handle Links and Bookmarks, for several minutes, but eventually advanced
Changed in "Game Setup":
- Global Setup, save box scores and game logs from human teams, others none
- AI Options, trading difficulty hard, trading preference heavily favor prospects
- League Setup, Options, turned on all Progressing Options in each league, changed first round of Major League Baseball playoffs to best of seven
Manager Options, set all Team Control Settings to computer AI / minor league managers; unchecked all "Exit Auto-Play..." options; changed News Subscription Settings to no news, unchecked shortlist option
"Go On Vacation"
start date is 1/1/85, "Auto-Play until next Year"
hangs on 1/12/85 (I let the program run for a couple of hours after the date stopped changing, so this looks more like a hard lockup than a slow garbage-collection process or something like that)

I've tried running the 20 years as a single block ("Auto-Play until Date X", with a date 20 years in the future); running a couple of years, saving, quitting, restarting and running a couple more years; running one year at a time ("Auto-Play until next Year"). All result in the program hanging.

I've tried ending the application through Windows Task Manager, restarting the application (which opens the last auto-saved season as of January 1), and restarting the simulation, but that hangs as well.

I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium on a 2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 with 2GB of memory. Indexing is on, running antivirus component of Norton Internet Security. The Windows Task Manager shows that the Out of the Park Baseball 1 application is "Running" in the Applications tab, and that the ootp10.exe process is still using 2-3% CPU and 200-300MB of memory in the Processes tab, even though nothing in the application window is changing.

Ask if there's any other information that you think might be useful.