I began the first Windows 7 and Games post to help gamers get a feel for how the new operating system was going to work with our beloved games, be we BAAGers, casual gamers or Darksiders. It has been just a little over a year now since Windows 7 was released. I'd have to say that we all have been pleasantly surprised at how well Windows 7 is working with our older games especially. One of the issues has been that almost all new OEM computers are shipping with 64-bit Windows 7. We have found that games created in 16-bit simply will not run on the 64-bit version of Windows 7. For instance, Shivers I ran perfectly on my 32-bit Windows 7 Release Candidate, but will not install or play on my 64-bit Windows 7.
I attempted to give credit to all the other Gameboomers members who have contributed so much to this thread, but it has become too much to try to give credit except in general terms. So, thank you to everyone who contributed to the original thread!
The original Windows 7 and Games thread is located
*** HERE ***.
I'm going to leave the basic specs of my computer which I built in January 2009 as a reference point. One of the tricks which has helped several people is to update your video card drivers.
At this point, although this thread will continue to be updated with older games, we will assume the vast majority of games developed after 2008 - 2009 are going to work. If you have a particular game which you are having problems with in Windows 7, please post in a separate thread in the Glitches forum so we can help you work out the issues.
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:80 Days Agatha Christie Evil Under the SunA Tale of Two Kingdoms (AGS game)
Agon The Lost Sword of Toledo
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.
AmerzoneAnkh Lanlynk got Ankh working with the help of the Vista patch and compatibility mode.
Here are Lanlynk's notes (in italics):
To get Ankh to work, here's what I did. First, I set it to run in Win XP (Service Pack 3) compatibility mode. Then I downloaded the Vista patch from Game Front:
***Vista Patch for Ankh***
The patch is basically one file, audiere.dll, which you switch out for the default file found (on my computer) in C:\Program Files (x86)\Ankh\bin\release. I removed the old file to a backup spot, and then just copied over the new file I had downloaded in its place.
Heads-up: the readme (Lisez-moi) and description for this patch is in French, but it's listed for the French or English games. The readme says it's for Vista 32 bit. I'm running Win 7 64 bit, but using XP compatibility mode along with the new file worked. I had to use both the file and XP mode though; neither worked on its own. Aura-Fate of the Ages
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)
The Black MirrorCarol 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
Culpa Innata
Dark Fall The Journal installed and played with no issues on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7.
Dark Fall Lights Out installed and played fine on my 64-bit. *Sarahandus was unable to get this one installed on her 64-bit system*
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. It 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.
Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon Traveler found a solution to the flickering screen problem sometimes seen in this game
***here***.
Traveler wrote in
***this thread*** that:
If you don't want to follow the link, the fix is simple. You just locate the Microids file, double click on the Config file in Dracula 3 to bring it up in Notepad, then change the line that mentions fullscreen to read zero instead of 1, so it would be: bFullScreen=0 (And save, of course.)
It's not the best solution in the world, it puts the game in a window, a decent sized window but off to the left of center on my wide-screen monitor.Dreamfall
Echo: Secrets of the Lost CavernNote: Collector reported Echo as working, but Sarahandus reported that Echo would not run. Both were using 64-bit Windows 7, so success may depend on computer configuration, drivers, etc.
Everlight
Fable: The Lost Chapters installed and plays perfectly.
Frogwares Games Thehood from Frogwares Games has informed us that all Frogwares games have been tested on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 and all are Win 7 compatible.
Gabriel Knight 1 (with patch)
Gabriel Knight 2 (with patch)
Gabriel Knight 3 (runs perfectly)
Grim Fandango In 64-bit it would not install without an installer. Thank you, traveler!
Grim Fandando InstallerGrim Fandango Launcher 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.
updated Grim Fandango info:
I used the 3rd party installer and launcher and this game installed, launched and played perfectly. However, when I pressed F1 and saved the game, I lost all sound when I resumed the game. When I exited and then started it back up again, the sound was fine. I tried XP SP2 compatibility with no success. Then I tried Windows 98 compatibility and was able to save, resume, exit, reload etc. with no loss of sound. You will need the installer and the launcher which can be found at these two links.
Grim Fandando InstallerGrim Fandango Launcher 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.
GAG Tested by HandsFree.
Ran using compatibility settings.
The HobbitIndigo Prophecy
Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation
Journey to the Center of the Earth
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.
Last Half of Darkness-Beyond the Spirit's Eye Last Half of Darkness-The Tomb of Zogir Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate EventsThe Longest Journey InlandAZ has the 4-cd version and it plays fine.
Lord of the Rings, Return of the KingsThe Lost CrownLouvre: The Final CurseTested by HandsFree.
Ran using compatibility settings.
Mata HariThe Messenger is playing for carlahelp on her Win 7 Professional
Moment of Silence Uncle Reg reports that the CD version of the game (North American version published by The Adventure Company) loaded and played on 64-bit Windows 7 with no problem, though he has not played much of it.
***link*** The DVD version (UK version published by Digital Jesters) will not play at all on 64-bit Windows 7 because it used the old version of StarForce copy "protection" that doesn't work with Windows 7.
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.
Myst V requires a patch to work in 64-bit Windows 7. Originally made for Vista SP1, it also works with Windows 7.
The patch is hosted at
***Gamefront***.
Draclvr discovered the reference to the patch on the Ubisoft forum:
***Solution to Playing Myst V on Windows 7 with SP1***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.
update on Treasure in the Royal Tower:
Penny Lane reported:
The above list of games for windows 7 mentions that Nancy Drew Treasure In The Royal Tower would not install on windows7. Well I have a remedy for that! When the Final Scene first came out there was a glitch so that it wouldn't install on my XP. I contacted HER about it and they told me that to install Final Scene I would have to uninstall Treasure In The Royal Tower first. And Vice versa for Treasure. So if you have The Final scene installed. uninstall it then install Treasure.(Some kind of "cross contamination"?) Both games cannot be installed on the same computer at the same time. I successfully installed each game on windows 7 after uninstalling the other first.NikopolObsidian This one requires playing in XP SP2 mode.
Pandora's Box - If it doesn't work out-of-the-box, try applying
***the patch from the Web Archive of Microsoft's support page for the game***.
ParadiseThe Polar ExpressPost MortemPenumbra OverturePerry RhodanPreyRatatouille This action game installed and played with no issues.
realMyst For the GOG download, please see the fix for realMyst below under the heading for games which require tweaking.
Return to Mysterious Island
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.
The Sacred RingsSalammboTested by HandsFree.
Ran using compatibility settings.
Sam and Max - All chapters/seasons seem to be playing.
Schizm 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"
Shivers 2 Installer Simon the Sorcerer MsMercury downloaded the 1993 game from GOG and it is playing fine on her 32-bit Win 7.
Sinking IslandSo BlondeStargate Adventure (AGS game)
Still Life (Venus had to run in NT 4.0 compatibility mode)
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 2Thomas & 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.
Titanic: Adventure Out Of TimeTomb Raider Legend The downloaded version from Steam is playing with no problems.
Vampire MasqueradeVampire 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.
VoyageThe Watchmaker Lagavulin has reported completing The Watchmaker on 64-bit Windows 7 without needing any tweaks or patches, and that it played perfectly.
NEWER TO NEW GAMES THAT RAN WITH NO TWEAKS OR ISSUES (ROUGHLY 2008 ON UP):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 Circle: A Carol Reed Adventure
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.
Casebook Episode III: Snake in the Grass
Ceville (Venus had to use Alt Tab to watch cutscenes)
Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life
Crysis
CSI Deadly Intent
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.
Jack Keane
Left 4 Dead
Machinarium
Magnetic Revisited Peter Hewitt's new game is a download and is playing perfectly.
Murder in the Abbey
Oblivion
Overclocked
Return to Mysterious Island 2
Rhem 4 Inland played this one on Win 7 with no problems.
Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis
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.
Sherlock Holmes Nemesis
Tales of Monkey IslandTombraider Underworld
Undercover Operation Wintersun (Venus had to use Alt Tab in order to watch cutscenes)
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.
All my casual games from Big Fish Games run perfectly, but Family had to run
Cake Mania 2 with Compatibility Mode set to Windows 2000 as described in
***this thread***. Peter's Jigsaw Puzzles runs perfectly.
GAMES THAT WON'T INSTALL, PLAY OR REQUIRE A LOT OF TWEAKING:(Note that any games that use 16-bit code (which includes DOS-based games, Windows 3.1 games, and many early Windows 95 games) will not work natively in 64-bit Windows. This is a characteristic of 64-bit. The same games may work natively in 32-bit Windows 7. They may also work non-natively in 64-bit Windows 7 using emulated environments, such as those provided by DOSBox, Virtual PC, VMware, etc., or by using ScummVM with games that support it.) Ark of TimeHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Arthur's KnightsHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
BackpackerHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Blown AwayHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Byzantine - The Betrayal
ConnectionsCrystal KeyHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Crystal Key 2Dark EyeHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Discworld 2HandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Egypt II Heliopolis Ikonious has tried all options and cannot get this game to install.
Egyptian ProphecyFaust: 7 Games of the SoulFaust actually will run once installed, but the problem is the installer doesn't work properly in Windows 7. However GB member Creeping Doom found a solution that was posted at GOG. He tested the solution, it worked for him, and he reported it in
***this thread***. You can find the solution posted by "Steelcracker" at the GOG forum
***here*** (8th post in the thread).
Edit -- Since GOG has removed the above forum page and it's only available on a single page at the Web Archive, I'm copying Steelcracker's instructions below as a backup:
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+
It turns out that Faust actually is compatible with Windows 7. The only problem is that it's installer is not. That's why that guy disassembled the file. I don't have an alternative version of this file, but I've found a manual solution.
Instructions:
1.) Create a destination folder for the game on your hard drive. For example, let it be
C:\Games\Faust\2.) Insert/mount the first CD1 with the game, then copy from it to the
C:\Games\Faust\ the next:
data folder (entirely)
ames . ini
aObj . ini
arxin3 . fon
faust16 . exe
faust . exe
fl . ini
mmxImage . dll3.) Copy file
sa . at3 from the
C:\Games\Faust\data\eng\ to
C:\Games\Faust\data\ (if you have different language version then instead of
eng it can be "ger" or "fra" or "rus")
4.) Open
fl . ini from the
C:\Games\Faust\ (with notepad for example) and find the next line:
CDPATH: CDROMEdit it like this:
CDPATH: E:\Instead of
E:\ you should use your CD-ROM drive letter.
5.) That's it. Launch the game with
faust . exe or
faust16 . exe, and change the CDs when it's necessary.
Keywords: Faust 7 seven Games of the Soul windows 7 "Error copying to temp directory : source:E:\ dest:C:\Windows\\TEMP\"
For the reference, the solution was found here:
nquest . ucoz . com/forum/8-369-1 and it worked for me on my Windows 7
EDIT -- GOG moved the thread to
***here***+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+
Fox HuntHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Gene MachineHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
Last Half of Darkness-Shadow of the Servant
Legend of the Prophet and the AssassinHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Leisure Suit Larry 7HandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
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.
MorpheusHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
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 realMyst 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.
EDIT FOR realMyst: I found a post on the GOG forums which worked for me. Thank you to jaelkthompson at the GOG forums for posting it. None of it worked until I changed the video card settings to Direct3D HAL. The default was Direct3D T&L HAL. A copy and paste from the post:
Go to the Start menu and navigate to the realMyst program file, right click, choose "Properties" and click the tab "Compatibility".
Under Compatibility mode, check the box "Run this program in compatibility mode for", and change the drop down menu to "Windows XP (Service Pack 3).
Under Settings, check "Disable visual themes".
Under Privilege Level, check the box "Run this program as an administrator".
Once these settings have been applied, click "Apply" and "OK" to exit.
Then, go back to the Start menu and run the Setup for realMyst, and make sure that the settings are as follows:
*3D Hardware, choose "Direct 3D", and change the drop down menu to the Direct 3D HAL setting for your graphic card
Nautilus, of course.
Opera FatalHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Quest for KarmaHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Robot CityHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
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.
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.
Still Life
The Dig
The Legend of Lotus Spring
TimelapseHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
ToonstruckHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
Torin's Passage
Victor VectorHandsFree was unable to get this game working natively in 64-bit Windows 7.
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.
acebook
witter
