Since the question will continue to come up and I've not seen any other posts about people playing games on Windows 7, I thought I would do a compilation of my experiences. As the post has grown, I've added added other players' experiences to this first post to keep things in one place.

* Sarahandus has a list of games on page 6 of this thread.

* Collector has also added a list of games on Page 7 of this thread.

* Becky and Venus have lists on page 13 of this thread

* Jenny100 has a link on page 24 of the thread to a GOG forum discussion of games from there working on Win 7.

* cas1701 has added more games on page 24 of the thread.

I installed the 32-bit Windows 7 final release candidate for the main purpose of testing it with games in May 2009. I've since installed the full 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.

Basic computer specs:

Intel Core Two Duo, Wolfdale E-8400, 3.0 Ghtz
500 GB WD hard drives (3)
160 GB drive from my old HP computer (XP Home)
Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 video card, 896 MB
Creative SB X-Fi sound card
4 GB RAM

OLDER TO OLD GAMES THAT RAN PERFECTLY OR WITH ONLY MINOR TWEAKS:

Al Emmo and The Lost Dutchman's Mine installed and played with no problems on 64-bit.

Alida This game has the odd feature of requiring that you copy the game file to your hard drive. I used the Win 7 snap feature to open a CD window and a C:/Program Files (x86) window and dragged and dropped the Alida game file there. From there I played it for about an hour with no problems at all. This is the 5-CD version.

American Magee's Alice installed and played fine on both 32-bit and 64-bit.

Barrow Hill installed and played with no problems on 64-bit.

Beyond Atlantis 2 (thanks, Jenny, for the reminder about the patch for the glitch in the first conversation with the guard)

Carol Reed mysteries. I tested the first three for Mikael Nyqvist after they rewrote some code so they could be played on Windows 7. Remedy, Hope Springs Eternal and Time Stands Still all installed and played perfectly on my 64-bit Win 7 without any extra steps or changes.

Clive Barker's Undying runs great on both 32-bit and 64-bit.

Counter Strike Condition Zero Grandson installed and played for a couple of hours. We had to play in XP compatibility mode, but it also played flawlessly.

CSI-Deadly Intent

Darkfall The Journal installed and played with no issues on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7.

Darkfall Lights Out installed and played fine on the 64-bit.

Delaware St. John games. Judith played all three. The only game that had a problem was the second Delaware St. John. If she didn't reboot the computer each time before she played, all she got was a black screen. I don't know if playing in XP compatibility mode was tried.

Diablo

Diablo 2, Lord of Destruction

Divine Divinity Both the GOG and CD versions are playing.

Dracula The Last Sanctuary On my 64-bit Win 7 I got an error about having the wrong version of windows for the game. So I went to the CD and installed from there. I wanted to install in Program Files, but I told it to install to Program Files (x86). I did not install the old version of DirectX. No more errors and the game played just fine.

Dracula Resurrection As with TLS, I got the error about having the wrong version of Windows for the game. I installed from the CD in XP SP2 compatibility mode. It's playing better than it ever did on my XP computer as I had to play it in 98SE compatibility on that machine.

Fable: The Lost Chapters installed and plays perfectly.

Grim Fandango/In 64-bit it would not install without an installer. Thank you, traveler! Grim Fandango Installer for 64-bit When I tried to play, I had several issues with sound and video. I tried playing in XP SP3 mode and then it played just fine.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Templeton Peck played the game with no issues on his 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban plays on Windows 7 64-bit edition with no problems.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Templeton Peck also played this one with no issues.

Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation

Keepsake installed and ran perfectly for about an hour and a half on 64-bit Win 7.

Larvamortus, an arcade/RPG/shooter game, from Giveaway of the Day plays perfectly.

Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events

Morrowind loaded and played - woo hoo!

Myst 4 Revelation Judith bowed to her masochistic side and braved the triple slider chair puzzle in on her 64-bit Win 7. She installed both patches and the game played fine. *NOTE* After losing large patches of hair trying to get this game to run on her 64-bit Win 7 without success, Cissy found the culprit was her dual monitors. When she turned one monitor off, the game played just fine.

Mysterious Journey 2 Judith is having no problems with this game.

Nancy Drew fans, rejoice! Judith played all but three of them with no problems on her 64-bit Win 7. Stay Tuned for Danger had a error message related to the sound and Treasure in the Royal Tower would not install. She did not try Secrets Can Kill as she disliked the game the first time around.

Nikopol

Post Mortem

Penumbra Overture

Prey

Ratatouille This action game installed and played with no issues.

Runaway: A Road Adventure Venus couldn't get it to work on her 64-bit Win 7. SharonB suggested the download from the GOG website and now Venus reports the GOG version of the game plays perfectly. A caveat from Venus on Runaway: A Road Adventure - the video in some of the cutscenes did some strange things like a head disappearing or lips stop moving. She has an 8600 GT video card and integrated sound.

Sacred Gold played for Syd with no problems.

Schism Judith is playing the 4-CD version on her 64-bit with no problems.

Scratches plays perfectly, but needs a fix. See Scratches notes below in the section on games that need tweaking.

Shivers 1/Installed and played fine in 32-bit, but does not install in 64-bit. As far as I know there is no installer for Shivers 1 as there is for Shivers 2.

Shivers 2 needed an installer from Squirt the Cat. But after I downloaded the installer, it played perfectly and in full screen - woo hoo! Same happy results on 64-bit Win 7. Look under "S" Shiver 2 Installer.

Simon the Sorcerer MsMercury downloaded the 1993 game from GOG and it is playing fine on her 32-bit Win 7..

Syberia 1 - I had absolutely no problems with game installation or play. However, the Alt/Tab was a bit glitchy. It's been a long time since I played the game, so I don't remember if it was like that before or not.

Syberia 2

The Hobbit

Thomas & Friends Railway Adventures Playset This game was made for Win 95 and Win 98 and comes with a playset you attach to the keyboard with a Velcro strap. Six year-old grandson was able to drive Thomas all over and do all the little jobs on grandma's 64-bit Win 7. You can find the game and playset at Amazon for $120 up new and $60 up used. I think I paid $20 for it in 2001.

The Longest Journey Inland has the 4-cd version and it plays fine.

The Messenger is playing for carlahelp on her Win 7 Professional

The Polar Express plays with no issues on 64-bit.

Tomb Raider Legend The downloaded version from Steam is playing with no problems.

Vampire Masquerade

Vampire Redemption - The only thing I had to do was change the in-game video options which I also had to do with my video card upgrade on my old XP computer. Played for about 2 hours with no problems at all. Needed to install and play in XP compatibility mode in 64-bit Win 7.

NEWER TO NEW GAMES THAT RAN WITH NO TWEAKS OR ISSUES:

Alter Ego While several people have had problems getting this game to run on Windows 7, JKEerie installed and played the game with no problems on her Asus gaming laptop. This gamer has some serious hardware including 6 GB of RAM and a dedicated 1 GB ATI 5870 video card. The processor is a Core i7 720 QM.

A Vampyre Story

Avencast: Rise of the Mage

Bioshock

Bioshock 2

Black Mirror II People who played it on both 64-bit Win 7 and XP have noted that the ambient sounds sometimes drown out the dialogue. Enabling the captions option ensured that no dialogue was missed.

Crysis

Darkfall Lost Souls

Darkness Within In Pursuit of Loath Nolder

Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage Becky notes that after she download the Nvidia PhysX drivers from the Nvidia website, the game plays fine.

Dragon Age Origin needed a Tages copy protection update on the 64-bit, but otherwise play perfectly (thanks, Jenny!).

Fallout 3 GOTY Misslilo has the GOG version with all the DLC and is playing with no problems.

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island Becky and Venus had no problems on 64-bit, but misslilo has exhausted all options trying to get the game to work with no luck.

Left 4 Dead

Machinarium

Magnetic Revisited Peter Hewitt's new game is a download and is playing perfectly.

Oblivion

Rhem 4 Inland played this one on Win 7 with no problems.

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is playing fine for judith on her 64-bit Win 7. She did install the Vista Patch.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper Mary said she did have to update the Tages copy protection drivers.

The Whispered World Jenna was having issues with the game locking up on her repeatedly. However, once she updated her ATI HD5570 video card driver to the 8/25/10 version, the game loads and plays fine.

The Witcher Oldman notes that downloading the 1.5 patch takes care of the Tages copy protection update issues.

Tombraider Underworld

All my casual games from Big Fish Games run perfectly. Peter's Jigsaw Puzzles runs perfectly.

GAMES THAT WON'T INSTALL, PLAY OR REQUIRE A LOT OF TWEAKING:

Egypt II Heliopolis Ikonious has tried all options and cannot get this game to install.

Nautilus, of course.

Myst, Masterpiece Edition - I finally got this game to install and play. It's not perfect, but it works. I had to uninstall my current Quicktime. Installed the game in XP SP2 mode and installed the 4.1 (I think) version of Quicktime. I then went to the "play" icon in the Red Orb game folder and right clicked to select Troubleshoot Compatibility. The only compatibility mode that I got to work was Win 95. But I moved everywhere around the first area in the game. All the video played in the book etc. One glitch was when I moved the books to get to the elevator. The sound stuttered for about 15 seconds and then the game picked up again. I was able to use the elevator and come back down. When I moved the books again, the game stuttered and then recovered as before. I saved the compatibility settings so now when I restarted the game a few times, I didn't have to go through any of the other steps. I didn't make any changes to my GTX 260. EXTRA NOTE: I downloaded and installed Real Myst from GOG which is supposed to work with 64-bit Vista. It worked until I would try to go inside any building - then the game would hang up.

Zanzarah installed fine and played until I tried to walk Amy out of the kitchen. Then the game froze - sound continued, but nothing else. I tried several times (using Ccleaner on the registry and getting rid of all other traces of the game between installs), but had the same result. When I installed it on my XP Home drive, it played just fine (same hardware). I've exhausted all options to get Zanzarah running on both 32-bit and 64-bit Win 7 and nothing has worked.

Scratches installed, but trying to play the game caused a BSOD and a memory dump. Upsydaisy reported the same result on her newly installed Windows 7. I tried playing both from a full installation and playing from the disk - same result.[/b]

EDIT for Scratches. Inland and I found a work-around posted by the game developer. You must edit the Scream.CFG file. To accomplish this in Windows 7, go to C:/Program Files/Nucleosys/Scratches. Find the Scream.CFG file and right click. Select Properties and from within that window, change the Open With option to either Notepad or Word Pad. Change the Rate from 0 to 60. Save the file, exit and restart the game.

Sherlock Holmes Mystery of the Mummy mcc could not install, even in XP compatibility mode. She had the combo CD version.

Martin Mystere: Operation Dorian Gray Judith has tried installing in all available XP compatibility modes on her 64-bit Win 7 and playing in different compatibility modes, but had no luck with getting the game to play.

Thanks Draclvr!

Not to mention that DOSBox and ScummVM seem to run under Windows 7 without issue.

Thank you for your hard work, Draclvr.

Ya, Jenny, it's been just TERRIBLE having to get out all these games and play them again! My excuse has been that I'm doing it for a good cause... *he, he, he*

It's good to know that DOSBox and ScumnVM work too. Thanks, Collector.

Draclvr, you have done a tremendous job of keeping us up to date on Win7. I know it's been a real hardship re-playing all those games.

I will be installing Win7 on my pc in a few days and thanks to you I can do it with confidence now.

Thank You~

Let us know how it goes, sarahandus. I'm going to hold off on my installation for awhile because I've decided to install the 64-bit version of Windows 7. I would like to try a few more of the older games on this 32-bit to see how they work. Then when I install the 64-bit, I'll try them again to see what happens.

I haven't installed my WIN7 yet and wonder if I have a choice as it says 64bit on the disc. I have played quite a few of my BF games on the Vista 64 bit and actually got Chemicus to work plus The Hobbit. I should quit draggin' my wagon and get it installed but.... Can you lay it over Vista without consequential problems? I think I read somewhere, (probably here), that it is best to do a clean install. Has anyone experience in doing it either way? Always looking for new input,

Hi, Lotus777!

Only the retail versions contain both 32-bit and 64-bit. If your computer came with 64-bit Vista preinstalled and you ordered your upgrade directly from Microsoft, you will get the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

I received my upgrade from Microsoft on Thursday (like you, I have 64-bit Vista so I received 64-bit Windows 7), but haven't installed it yet. I prefer to do a clean install rather than an upgrade over the existing operating system, and that's definitely an option by clicking on "Custom" instead of "Upgrade" during the install.

If you choose "Custom", your hard drive will be reformatted, so make sure you back up any files and settings you want to save if they're on the same drive as your operating system.

Susan

Yes, what Susie said. Windows 7 will create a "windows.old" file, but it's not recommended that you totally rely on it to restore your files.

Thanks so much Susan. This is enlightening for me. Maybe just one more question?? There is a place in the Vista where you can back up files. I did this onto a flash drive. I have no idea what it backed up. Would it have saved my email and internet settings? Would it have saved my Documents and my email? If so, then if I use the Custom install and then later restore all my backed up items would I be good to go , so to speak? I sooo appreciate all of the help everyone gives here, btw!!!

EDIT: Just saw your post, Draclvr and thank you for that info too. Now if I can be sure of the back up it did...it took almost all the room on my 8 GB flash drive.

Hi, Lotus777!

Here's the link to Microsoft's website that provides detailed instructions for doing a custom install from Vista to Windows 7. I have bookmarked it and plan to print it out before I start.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-vista-to-windows-7-custom

I've never used the Vista backup function. When you backed up your files to a flash drive, did you have the option of choosing which files to back up or did it automatically back up everything? I would assume it would back up all of your user files, but I'm not sure about your emails or internet settings. Are you able to view the files on your flash drive? I would suggest you do a test first and delete a file you don't really care about, and then try to restore it.

I have all of my user files on a separate D: hard drive, so I just back up the entire drive. My operating system and program files are on C: drive and I have all of the original CDs so I can reinstall my programs once I have upgraded to Windows 7.

Susan

Thanks so much, Susan. This will be a great help to me. And no, it didn't give me an option of what I wanted to back up. It is mainly some emails I would like to keep such as lic. number of my Avast which is easier to copy and paste. However, I do have that on another computer and I do have all of my settings written down sooooo, I just might be able to do this on my own. If I get in trouble I can always go to the other computer and holler for help here or if worse comes to worse I can take it in and have it done for too much money, haha. I will do as you suggested and test the files on the drive just in case. Thanks so much again.

For the e-mails you want to keep, another thing you could do is set up a Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail account and send the e-mails you want to keep to the internet account. That way you can access them after the install and send them back to yourself.

What a great idea!!! Thanks so much, Draclvr. One more itsy little question, please. What about drivers? I have never done anything like this before and haven't the foggiest about how do I know which drivers I need , where to find them etc. I have only updated drivers in the past. I thank you once more very much for all the help.

To be honest, since you are upgrading a Vista machine, I have a feeling Windows 7 is going to find all your drivers for you. I only had to manually install one drive for my video card. Windows 7 found everything else, down to my 7 year old HP printer!

I had to do a clean install of Win 7 because during the upgrade installation my computer froze and I lost my OS.
When I logged on all my emails for the past 2-3 years were in my folder. Even ones I had deleted. This was great because I had kept all my registration codes for games etc., and were able to re-install.
Are emails kept by servers for a couple of years? or are they floating about in cyber-space.

I've edited my first post to add two more games to the lists.

Hi Draclvr, have you tried to play Scratches (not the Directors Cut version).?
It installed fine but when I tried to play it, had the BSOD and a memory dump.
Caesar IV runs beautifully so does Harry Potter-Prisioner of Azkaban.

Funny you should mention Scratches, Upsydaisy! I got it out last night and it's next on my list.

EDIT: Added it to the list as unsuccessful. Upsydaisy, is your Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit?

Did you apply the patch?

Nucleosys

You can find some interesting comments by Agustin in the thread below -

Nucleosys Forum Index -> Technical Support

And on the second page, a work around -

Folks, I have some bad news. I did manage to reproduce the error: thing is I was testing the game in windowed mode and that works perfectly fine - it crashes badly when it attempts to switch to fullscreen, which means this is a very, very odd behavior. I can't say when (and if) I'll be able to look into this strange problem, but in the meantime you can definitely run Scratches in Windows 7 by simply editing the SCREAM.CFG file and setting FULLSCREEN to 0. It's a quick fix and far from ideal but at least you will be able to run the game.


Followed up with -

Forget what I said! Great news - after further testing, I realized what the problem is. Automatically detecting the refresh rate doesn't seem to work in Windows 7 as it previously did (again, I've NO idea how this could be causing a BSOD).

Just edit the SCREAM.CFG file and set RATE to 60. Then save and run the game. It will magically work again

Obviously great minds think alike, Inland! I finally had some time tonight to look into the Scratches issue and found the same posts you did. I will edit my original post with the word-around and how to accomplish it.

Hallo all
Draclvr - I have 32-bit.
Inland - Will have a go at the patch and work around but am just settling into playing the new CSI!! I'll see if Draclvr has any success.
Thanks

I installed Windows 7 Professional yesterday, the 32bit version on a new, clean hard drive using the "custom" install. Aside from the nail biting about whether it was actually installing on the new drive,(I have 3 hard drives) I can say that was the quickest and easiest OS install I have ever done. It did add another step in the OS selection on start-up. The list shows a choice of Windows 7 and "older versions", then I get to the choice of the earlier 2 XP drives.

I have to install some drivers yet, but things look fine so far. The introductory screen is really pretty.

Upsydaisy, I edited my first post with directions on how to do the work-around for Scratches.

That's great sarahandus! I had my other drives unplugged when I installed the Windows 7 release candidate - for the same reason you mentioned. I was too nervous about it installing on the correct hard drive! So I don't get that screen at the beginning - I have to go into my BIOS and change the boot order. Hopefully when I do the upgrade, that will change.