Quote:
Originally Posted by Hal01
First off I have Windows 7 not Vista.
The batch file provided in the new patch (Win7SPWW2 which is a Windows Command Script) has a call to a windows internal program called 'taskkill.exe' which apparently is set up in the script to kill the Aero process in Windows 7.
Running this script caused it to error our with 'Unknown Command Name' so the game did not work in either Windowed or FS mode due to Aero not being stopped as discussed in other threads. I did a search for taskkill and copied it into my SPWW2 folder which is on my G drive (Yes I have that many drives).
After coping the taskkill exe into the SPWW2 folder everything is now working fine when the game is launched using the script file (Win7SPWW2). Now I just have to remember what the hell I was doing in the campaign I was in the middle of 
It really does not matter to me why I had to copy the taskkill exe into the SPWW2 folder, as long as it is now working.
Rant on
It is awesome that I can now play one of my favorite games again. I just wish that the copywrite owners of the source code would allow the game to be redesigned to take advantage of the new displays, multitreading, etc. rather than continuing to have everyone jump through hoops to keep getting the game to run on systems that it was never designed to run on. At some point advances will get to a point that the game will be beyond help and then we will all feel a loss of a really great game.
While some here may be willing to play with 800x600 graphics forever in order to enjoy the game, (or running virtual machines using DOS/XP/etc. or using utilities like DOSBox) I am not one of these. While it is great that higher resolutions are now usable, it does not do justice to the unit and terian graphics that could be presented if allowed. I for one would be more than willing to pay full price for such an upgrade.
But it at least it does work once again, and I will continue to play but at some point without any fundamental changes to the game, I will stop and move on to lesser games which at least do not require such detailed requirements just to get the game to function. A sad day for me to be sure, but one I find is fast approaching.
Rant off |
re my bold
it may be that something about the way your G:\ drive is set up makes windows 7 lose the path to the windows folder? (is it an USB or flash drive perhaps?).
In that case, you may need to edit the batch file to use fully-qualified paths to the windows service routines?.
So the taskkill statement in the CMD file would therefore need to be modified to C:\Windows\System\taskkill - or whatever path it happens to be to the exe location, tacked on in front.
Dumping the executable in the folder of course bypasses that completely
!.
If it's restoring the desktop after exit from the CMD script session, then it is finding the
other system commands fine though. Which would be weird - or Microsoft, which amounts to the same thing really..
NB - the CMD file is
not called, in Windowed mode. It is
only called for Full-Screen mode. There is no need to kill off Aero, if you play in windowed mode - and "Desktop resolution" Windowed Mode does the same job as full-screen for the full CD game owners, together with playing with Windows multi-tasking in a more cooperative manner.
Cheers
Andy