XP Mode

[Collector]

Yes, of course I was referring to Aero. I am a bit sensitive to certain 3-D engines, so I can appreciate that. Some of those can cause the eyes to twitch while trying to follow the movement on the screen, thus inducing nausia from the perceived movement. But Aero is static. I suspect that whoever was the origin of that just wanted there to be yet one more reason to justify wanting to go back to an earlier OS. There have always been such Luddites. When Win3x and MacOS first came out there were the fogies that whined "what's so hard about having to type the name of the programs or commands you want to run. When Win 95 came out, the whining was about that they did not like having standards set for default locations of certain folders (Documents and Settings, Program Files, etc.) When XP came out, the Luddites cried about the loss of real DOS and programs' lack of direct access to hardware. They whined about the "imposition" of DirectX.

Each one of these debuts of new OSs brought out the usual crop of complainers, pointing to how much extra resources the new OS uses, but the whining is really mostly just because something changed while overlooking the valuable advances in usability, stability and security. XP is over a decade old. It was great while it lasted, but it is time to let it go.

[DeadPoolX]

XP is over a decade old. It was great while it lasted, but it is time to let it go.

Overall, I agree, but some people still use XP because their computer is older (and can't afford a new one) or they can't simply justify the cost of purchasing a new OS.

When you're scrounging to pay rent and monthly bills, buying a new PC and/or a new OS simply aren't priorities.

That said, I do refuse to upgrade to and use Windows 8. It's basically a tablet OS stuck on a PC, so I don't want to give them my money on that principle alone. Maybe they'll learn and make the next OS designed for PC, in which case I'll be a lot more interested.

[Collector]

Older hardware is another issue altogether. You do have use an OS appropriate for the hardware, but I am aware of some that have installed XP on a modern system. The problem with doing this is that it is very likely that they will never get a stable system form this. XP was designed for different hardware and cannot take advantage newer hardware. The licensing is different for XP than modern Windows. XP will not make a distinction between multi core and multi socket, so XP will not let you take advantage of extra cores over two. More than that would require moving to Windows Server 2003. Vista onward licenses according to socket, not CPU. Also, hardware manufacturers no longer optimize drivers for XP, leading to stability issues.

One last thing about XP -- Microsoft support is about to run out (no more updates), effectively meaning that XP has reached the end of its life cycle.

[Rath Darkblade]

All this is fair enough - I fully understand the advantages of usability, stability and reliability when it comes to a new release of Windows Then again, there are some games that will only run (or run smoother, like QfG5) on WinXP - not Windows Vista/7/8.

Sigh... the average game life-cycle is a few years. Once a new OS is released, it gets harder and harder to play the games that you used to play and still like... and I think that's a shame.

[envisge0ne]

I cant obviously speak for all games, but I can run all my old games, including qfg5 smoothly on Win7

[Collector]

And actually, there are some games that will only run or run better on Vista/7 than on XP, too. Same can be said about most versions of Windows. The Windows version of KQ6 will not run natively on XP, but does out of the box in 32-bit Vista/7. There is a lot of reverse compatibility built into Vista and 7. This is sort of a non issue as APIs change over time, in part to expand capabilities. Occasionally this breaks backward compatibility, but Windows has bent over backwards more regarding backward compatibility than most OSs. Sometimes to its own detriment.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm...? I'm not so sure. Some of my old games (non-Sierra ones), I've just had to give up on, unfortunately (e.g. LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth 2). Ah, well. Since it ran flawlessly for me in WinXP, I hoped it might be the answer... but perhaps not. Never mind...

I've also tried running QfG5, which runs fairly smoothly... until the Dragon wakes up. Due to the fact that I have had to update iTunes, I've just about given up on QfG5.

[Collector]

The SHP installer addresses the QuickTime and dragon breath issues, but both of those issues existed on XP as well. You may have had fewer problems on XP, but that was probably due to having an older version of QuickTime, not which version of an NT kernel based Windows.

[Rath Darkblade]

Fair enough. I'll have a look for the QfG5 SHP installer... ah, found it! :-]

Sorry, one last question... now that I have found the installer, how do I use it? *blush* I can see that it comes already patched. I have the original Sierra install CD and play CD. Do I need to install from the CDs and then run this installer to patch the game, or...? Sorry if this seems obtuse, I'm just not sure how it works. Thanks for writing the installer.

[adeyke]

The way the installers work is that you insert the install CD but then run the downloaded installer instead of the one on the CD.

[Fender_178]

Well I know this that I got alot of legacy software to work under XP mode such as my digital recorders that I used for school purposes due to no drivers for Windows 7. Also Xp mode is powerful enough to run all of the old CSI based adventure games. I also installed the Windows version of GK1 and 2 using that windows installer that someone made the name slips my mind since it has been a long time since doing that.

[Rath Darkblade]

The way the installers work is that you insert the install CD but then run the downloaded installer instead of the one on the CD.

Ah, ok. Thanks adeyke! Sorry if sounds daft, I've just never used them before.

[envisge0ne]

I know I'm kinda back tracking, but you mentioned that you gave up on running LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth 2. I just installed it on my Win7 without any probs. Runs just fine. What problems did you have installing it?

[Rath Darkblade]

The installation worked fine. The game itself, however, would not start... here's what I tried:

1. Installed patch. The game loaded just fine, but when I tried to actually start playing, it froze and I had to close it with Windows Task Manager. So...
2. I googled for answers and found I may need to make changes in the Options.ini file because LOTR: BfME2 doesn't like big screens for some reason. I made the changes, saved the ini file... still no go.

Couldn't figure out where to go from there, gave up in frustration, and put the disc away. Let me install it again and find out the error... okay, done installing, but I can't even get the game to load now. I get the initial "LOTR: BfME2" splash-screen, but then it freezes and I have to use Windows Task Manager to close it again. Sigh.

Any ideas where to go from here? *crosses fingers*

[envisge0ne]

Strange. When you say big screens, you mean the resolution? I wish I had an answer for you. I have a wide screen monitor that displays the maximum resolution of 1440x900. It installed and played fine for me without me having to do any tweaks. I set the resolution in the game options to the max setting it allows of 1280x900. I'm using Win7 32 bit & I've noticed a lot of the reported probs are on 64 bit My options.ini file looks like this...

AllHealthBars = yes
AmbientVolume = 50.000000
AudioLOD = High
Brightness = 50
HasSeenLogoMovies = yes
IdealStaticGameLOD = High
MovieVolume = 70.000000
MusicVolume = 70.000000
Resolution = 1280 960
SFXVolume = 70.000000
ScrollFactor = 50
SendDelay = no
StaticGameLOD = High
TimesInGame = 3
UseEAX3 = no
VoiceVolume = 70.000000