Info: Windows Vista and Windows Seven Installation

[Artaud]

I am having a devil of a time trying to run MBT on out laptop. We have a Dell Inspiron with 4G of memory. It is a Win 7 machine. No dedicated graphics card.

I have the CD version of MBT as well as WW2. Both are installed according to the path described earlier in this thread. MBT is patched up to the "13th March 2013" version. When I double click the desktop icon the opening screen appears. Using that screen I set the game to run in "Windowed/Desktop" mode. My desktop resolution is 1366 x 768. But when I click 'play' the game will not launch. Nothing happens. WW2 will not run either.

I was experimenting with different settings, and at one point was able to get MBT to run, but the screen was elongated and impossible to read.

I would greatly appreciate any advice.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Artaud

I am having a devil of a time trying to run MBT on out laptop. We have a Dell Inspiron with 4G of memory. It is a Win 7 machine. No dedicated graphics card.

I have the CD version of MBT as well as WW2. Both are installed according to the path described earlier in this thread. MBT is patched up to the "13th March 2013" version. When I double click the desktop icon the opening screen appears. Using that screen I set the game to run in "Windowed/Desktop" mode. My desktop resolution is 1366 x 768. But when I click 'play' the game will not launch. Nothing happens. WW2 will not run either.

I was experimenting with different settings, and at one point was able to get MBT to run, but the screen was elongated and impossible to read.

I would greatly appreciate any advice.

And that is precisely the brand of laptop I have, in Win 7 with that size of screen. Both games work perfectly OK in all resolutions that it supports - though as a wide-screen, I tend to stick to "desktop" resolution in both windowed and full-screen modes.

1366 wide screens needed a little bit of jiggling with the pixel size that is used by the graphics engine way back - they are not divisible properly by the appropriate multiple of pixels that WinVFX expects and so had to be shaved by 2 pixels I think it was.

The normal error if you are trying to drive the graphics card at a resolution it does not support is the "Unable to initialise directX" message box. Is that what you are getting?.

The elongated screen is a partial failure, with a mode that almost worked, but not quite. (The pixel adjustment for 1366 mode wide-screens cured precisely that).

Also - have you applied all the patches in sequential order and ensured that they are pointed at the same path? That is a necessity for Windows vista and seven as if you use the "program files" path then it tends to install patches to your user profile and not where they should have gone. (I would have a look in your user profile for any game files being placed there). The skewed screen suggests to me that you haven't got the patch that fixes that properly applied, to me.

- does the work in windowed mode in 800x600, 1024x768 etc?. If not then something is surely wrong.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

Oh - I forgot the commonest reason for the skewed desktop, naturally!. Insufficient tea this early in the AM..

If an end user has not followed the installation instructions and has not disabled auto-hide for his Windows task bar then that happens as the graphics engine was written before Windows had that feature (I think) and so gets the wrong screen size reported to it at initialisation.

So make sure your Windows task bar is not set to auto hide, and it is in the default position and size at the bottom of the screen.

cheers
Andy

[Artaud]

Thanks for the replies.

My taskbar isn't locked. And as far as I know I installed all the patches in the correct places. But I've gone ahead and deleted the game. Some files would not delete because Windows says they are in use. [huh?]

Anyway, I'll try to re-install everything tomorrow night.

I hate Microsoft. There are several games that I used to enjoy that just won't work in Win 7. In addition to our Win 7 laptop, until a week ago we were using a 9 year old Win XP desktop that we kept repairing until it's just not cost-effective anymore.

Oh well. I hope I can get MBT and SPWW2 to work in Win 7. Thanks for the tips.

[DRG]

Make sure you install it OUTSIDE program files

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Artaud

Thanks for the replies.

My taskbar isn't locked. And as far as I know I installed all the patches in the correct places. But I've gone ahead and deleted the game. Some files would not delete because Windows says they are in use. [huh?]

Anyway, I'll try to re-install everything tomorrow night.

I hate Microsoft. There are several games that I used to enjoy that just won't work in Win 7. In addition to our Win 7 laptop, until a week ago we were using a 9 year old Win XP desktop that we kept repairing until it's just not cost-effective anymore.

Oh well. I hope I can get MBT and SPWW2 to work in Win 7. Thanks for the tips.

Something seems not right with your W7 laptop - mine is a pain to deal with for older stuff that ran perfectly well under XP and before, but not completely hopeless...

Since it seems to be your UAC then I'd try:-

- 1) disconnect computer from the internet (cables physically pulled and wireless turned off, and router too!)
- 2) ONLY then, disable the UAC in windows 7
- 3) Now try installing everything, and ensure that you use the same path for each installer, and that it is outside of /program files/

NB - 4) For older games and utilities that seem to not work any more in windows 7 - also de-install those if necessary, then install to a folder such as c:\aaa\Games and not to any of the Microsoft UAC-managed (mangled?!) directories. That has been known to let at least some games and older applications work once more under W7. For example - Windows 7 UAC wont allow programmes to write data to their own installation's home folder (if installed under a UAC-mangled folder), which can nuke e.g. INI files holding your changed settings and so on and so forth.

NB - 5) Some games (and ours in full screen is one of these) - that used the 256 colour DOS palette get "interesting" screens, since M$ decided that as DOS was dead (yeah, right!) then the new Aero user interface in W7 could happily play with that as its own private colour palette!. That is why we have to use a command script to disable Aero and the explorer as part of running in full screen in W7. Look at the scripts we have supplied, and try making a version for the older 256 colour DOS game that W7 is killing by smearing its palette. (I copied it from examples on other game's support sites that had the W7 colour problem, did not invent the method all by meself!).

Finally - Turn UAC back on, if you require it. Then reconnect to the internet.

As for stuff that really wont work in Windows 7 (Such as my Borland programming environments for both Delphi and C++ Builder) - then I installed a virtual XP emulator for that.

BTW - Don has reported to me that Borland Builder actually works in Windows 8 - so Microsoft seem to have fixed something at least, in W8! - and that's something rather rare from them. (In Builders case W7's UAC refused to allow the IDE code debugger to work, even when installed outside of mangled folders, as it considered it a security risk or whatever!)

Andy

[Artaud]

It looks like I have gotten everything working correctly. Thank you so much for helping me, and for everything you guys have done to keep this great game alive.

I think my mistake was in how I set my taskbar. I thought that it was enough to right-click on the toolbar and unlock it. After poking around a bit I found that I needed to right-click, choose 'Properties,' and un-check 'Auto-hide the taskbar.'

*sigh* I'm just not very tech-savvy. Back in the day I used to spend LOTS of time tweaking DOS settings to try to get games to run... But that was long ago.

I wonder who has the rights to the old classic Age of Rifles. If you gentlemen could do for AoR what you have done for Steel Panthers...wow!

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Artaud

It looks like I have gotten everything working correctly. Thank you so much for helping me, and for everything you guys have done to keep this great game alive.

I think my mistake was in how I set my taskbar. I thought that it was enough to right-click on the toolbar and unlock it. After poking around a bit I found that I needed to right-click, choose 'Properties,' and un-check 'Auto-hide the taskbar.'

*sigh* I'm just not very tech-savvy. Back in the day I used to spend LOTS of time tweaking DOS settings to try to get games to run... But that was long ago.

I wonder who has the rights to the old classic Age of Rifles. If you gentlemen could do for AoR what you have done for Steel Panthers...wow!

No "unlocking" the taskbar is nothing to do with auto hiding it (where you have to hover the mouse over the appropriate bit of the screen - the left side if the end user has it set up there say - to make it pop into view).

"Unlocking" simply means you can drag the icons about on it. Which in my case means that if you double click on say your Firefox launch icon and slightly put some right (or left) motion on it, it swaps around with another one on the launch bar which you then click instead of what you wanted the next time! - which is why you unlock the task bar, set up icons as desired, then re-lock it!

Andy