Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sappho]

I'm tearing my hair out here trying to do this. I have an old CD-ROM of Oregon Trail 1.2. It worked just fine on my old Vista machine, but it won't run at all on Windows 7. I tried every compatibility mode and it didn't work. Finally I downloaded Windows Virtual PC and a copy of XP Mode, but I can't get XP mode to work. The site let me download and install it fine, but when I try to actually turn on the virtual PC I just get a neverending load screen that occasionally tells me the BIOS is invalid. There doesn't seem to be any support whatsoever available from Microsoft (big surprise there). The only thing I was finally able to find after an hour of digging is that XP Mode is not supported on "Home" versions of Windows 7 because, according to them, non-business software might require hardware acceleration which doesn't work well in Virtual PC. (Worst reason I've ever heard of to not offer software for use). The thing is, according to the site I'm not even supposed to be allowed to download and install XP Mode on my computer, but somehow it let me do it anyway. I have the option to use XP Mode in Virtual PC, it just doesn't boot properly.

I don't need XP. I don't need anything better than Windows 3.1, in fact. I don't need this machine to do anything complicated, just open an application that isn't 64-bit. I'm about to try DosBox but I think I remember trying it before and it not working because it's not a DOS program, it's a Windows version.

There HAS to be some way for me to get this fucking thing to work. I've had this CD since 1995, I have not been able to find a version available for download anywhere which works on newer operating systems, and this is one of my favorite games from my childhood. If I can't get it to run I'll have to dig up an old computer somewhere to do it... But that's absurd. This machine is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of running the game, it just REFUSES to.

Any ideas guys? I'm getting super-pissed-off here!

EDIT: Confirmed that DosBox does not run it because it is a Windows program. Preparing to throw something breakable against the wall in 3... 2... 1...

[Heron TSG]

Have you uh, tried Wine? Maybe running an alternate Windows on your Windows will allow you to use Windows more easily?

Microsoft's Response

I'll send you a PM with another way.

[Twiggie]

set up a VM with win95 or 98 installed, and run it on there.
thats worked for me a few times.

[Sappho]

OK it seems I will be able to make it work finally. I've spent about 3 hours on this today already... First I tried "finding" a virtual copy of the old Win95 floppy disks and using them on Virtual PC. Unfortunately Virtual PC doesn't list floppies in the GUI despite supporting them in the software because Microsoft is run by assholes, so I had to find a script to load the virtual disks and run it each time I wanted to change disks (14 in all). It took me over an hour to figure out how to make this work, then finally I managed to get it all installed. Then I got a Windows Protection Error so I couldn't load the hardware on my virtual 95, so I couldn't load the CD for Oregon Trail. I looked up ways to fix this and immediately slammed my head against the wall. Not worth the effort.

So then I "found" a copy of Windows XP and am currently installing it on VMware Player, which seems to be working just fine. Hopefully that will solve all the problems.

Shame, too. I was kind of looking forward to having a mini-Win95 machine on my computer. If only I could find an ISO from the CD-ROM version, I might be able to get it to work, but I was only able to find floppies for some reason.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll let you know how it goes in the end. Also: Giant Middle Finger to Microsoft, you bunch of assholes.

[Reelya]

There's an open source x86 emulator called Bochs as well.

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

[Sappho]

Ohfer... I got XP on VMware but it doesn't see my CD-ROM. In the device manager there are driver errors for "Base System Device" and "Video Controller." Does anyone know anything about how to fix this stuff?

[Twiggie]

im pretty sure you can set a CD drive to be used with the VM in the settings somewhere.

it'll let you use physical or virtual drives

[Sappho]

Yes, I must clarify: it shows a drive fine in "My Computer" but it says it's empty. The disc is opening fine in Windows 7, just won't let me run the program because of compatibility... XP isn't seeing the disc at all. If I try to open the disc drive it says "please insert disc"...

Right now I'm trying to make a software copy of the disc to see if it runs better that way, but I can't make an iso. I've had this problem with this disc before. I wanted to back it up because it's getting old and a bit roughed up, but I can't make an iso because it "contains multiple tracks," whatever that means. I'm currently outputting a .bin file instead, but I don't think I'll be able to load that in VMware...

EDIT: Oh my god... I just realized that I can run the game directly from the disc without installing. The game files work fine on Windows 7, it's just the installer that doesn't. Apparently all the installer does is copy the CD files to the hard drive. If I just run the game .exe from the disc it works fine without any problems.

I'm going to pretend I didn't just waste about four hours of my life trying to make this work...

[foil]

nvm lol

[Sappho]

I have 8 GB of RAM. Running Windows 7 64-bit. This machine has pretty high-end hardware.

And yes, I know it should run the DVD drive fine, but it's not working. There's a disc in the drive but the guest system thinks there isn't. So somewhere along the line, some kinds of wires are getting crossed... I'd like to figure out what the problem is in case I need to use it in the future.

[the_donut]

I recommend dosbox on anything pre-W95 era. Some W95 games need directory editing to work like Lord of the Realm 2.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/files/dosbox/0.74/DOSBox0.74-win32-installer.exe/download

Here's a guide: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Basic_Setup_and_Installation_of_DosBox.

[Sappho]

Yes, I use DosBox for Dos games of course, but there are plenty of games written for Windows (which don't work on DB) which are no longer supported by windows. In this case, Oregon Trail 1.2 seemed to be one of them, although fortunately it turns out it's only the installer that's not compatible and I'm still able to run the game.

[Jimmy]

Try D Fend Reloaded if running DOSBox itself isn't working.

http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

At the heart it's DOSBox, but I've used it to successfully install and play games made for Windows 95 using this one. Point the program at the installer file, it will install it on your virtual machine, then locate and point the program towards the executable and you're done.

[Machiavelli]

Possibly my favorite game is Jane's Fighters Anthology.  It's a Win95 game, and goes apeshit when it's run on Win7.  The fix?  Run a .bat file to kill Explorer.exe while running it.  It removed the artifacts and most of the performance problems (the one remaining being mouse lag).  I THINK it has something to do with 64-bit-isms as well, but pursuing a similar solution to the JFA one should fit the bill for you.

[Leatra]

Possibly my favorite game is Jane's Fighters Anthology.  It's a Win95 game, and goes apeshit when it's run on Win7.  The fix?  Run a .bat file to kill Explorer.exe while running it.  It removed the artifacts and most of the performance problems (the one remaining being mouse lag).  I THINK it has something to do with 64-bit-isms as well, but pursuing a similar solution to the JFA one should fit the bill for you.

Let me guess, game had strange glitchy graphics and weird colors before the .bat fix? Yeah, killing the explorer.exe seems to work anytime that happens. It happened to me with Diablo 2 and Age of Empires 2.

Sometimes doing an alt+tab and returning to the game later seems to work too.