Gabriel Knight III

I just installed Gabriel Knight III on my Windows 7 machine. It seems to install fine, but when I try to play, I get a message that says that the game "is not a valid Win32 application." The Windows 7 thread indicates that it should play without issue.

Any advice?

Thanx in advance.

Antoinetta

Have you tried playing it in compatibility mode?
Right-click the shortcut for the game
Choose Properties from the menu
Choose the Compatibility tab
Try compatibility for Windows 98

If that doesn't work, try other compatibilities, like Windows 2000, Windows NT, and Windows NT.

Thanx Jenny, but I have the same result with all compatibility options. I also don't know what they mean when the window says the game is not "Win32 compatible." I'm playing Window 7 and would imagine that Windows 32 might be 50 or so years out.

Seriously though, what do they mean by "Win32?"

Antoineta

"Win32 compatible" means it uses 32-bit code as opposed to 16-bit code. 16-bit code would be code written for DOS, Windows 3.1, or very early Windows 95.

64-bit Windows can handle 32-bit code, but not 16-bit code.

As far as I know, any game published in 1999 would have 32-bit code, and people have played GK3 on Win7x64, so the problem is not that GK3 doesn't use 32-bit code.

According to computerhope.com, here are some possible causes of the error listed at http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000726.htm

Since you managed to install the game, the most likely problems are with a bad install (maybe an antivirus blocked part of the install?).

Are you using a GOG version of the game or the disc version?

One thing you could try (if you're using a disc version) is uninstalling the game, changing compatibility on the game setup file on the CD to compatibility mode for Windows 98 or 2000, and reinstalling it.