I just got a new computer with Windows 7 on it and I'm having trouble running the Sherlock Holmes game "The Case of the Rose Tattoo" on it. I've tried to run it using DOS BOX, but with no luck.

I keep getting an error message daying something about "Windows System 32" does not recognize full-screen mode, or something like that. Is there a patch or file I can download to fix this?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Call1e

Hi Call1e,

This is a tech issue, so I'll move you across to Glitches for advice.

Thanks. I wasn't sure where to put the post.

Are you trying to play it full screen on a widescreen monitor? Try to play it windowed.

I can't even get it to install. Whenever I try to install it, I get an error message saying that the "NTVDM.exe" or something like that has stopped working and all I can do is close the program.

I even tried to run it through DOS BOX and that didn't work either.

Did you issue a mount command to attach the CD Rom?

mount d d:\ -t cdrom -ioctl

The format of the mount command is: mount virtual drive letter as physical drive letter followed by a number of optional parameters. The above mounts a virtual CD drive 'D' to a physical CD drive 'D' (use the drive letter your PC assigns for the physical drive if yours if different).

The drive will have to be mounted each time you play the game. DOSBox front-ends like D-Fend Reloaded will make the job much easier for you; it saves the profiles so you don't have to manually issue the commands each time you play the game.

Yes, I tried to use the mount format, but whtn I told the computer to "install" it said it couldn't find the install.bmp file.

The game is supposed to be playable in Windows 95 and DOS formats. When I tried to use the compatibility setting for Windows 95, the computer said something about the .pif file not being available.

Call1e,
If you don't have experience in DOSBox, check out Inferno's Tutorial on setting up DOSBox.

***Inferno's Tutorial on DOSBox page 1***
***Inferno's Tutorial on DOSBox page 2***
***Inferno's Tutorial on DOSBox page 3***
***Inferno's Tutorial on DOSBox page 4***


Running this game in 64-bit Windows 7 without using an emulator of some sort is likely cause a problem because the game probably uses 16-bit code. If you have the 32-bit version of Windows 7 you won't have that particular problem. If you have the 32-bit version of Windows 7, you could try ***Inferno's Instructions for installing Rose Tattoo on XP***. I don't know if they'll work for 32- bit Windows 7, but they give you an idea of what to try.

Thanks Jenny100. i already have DOSBOX downloaded for use on the 3 Consulting detective games, but I didn't have to go through all of the above steps to use it. I just had to mount the game on my E drive. I've also seen Inferno's tutorial, but all those steps seemed too lengthy, and thought there would be a quicker way to get the game up and running. I'm kind of busy this weekend, but maybe I can work on it next week and finally get the game up and running. If I get it running, or if I need more help, I'll post here. I forgot to add that I checked my system, and I'm running Windows 7, 32-bit memory, and IE8.

A lot of people use one of the DOSBox FrontEnds to configure it. You might try D-Fend Reloaded or one of the others listed on the DOSBox download page
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

Hi,
You can try the setup from the link below (it's for XP but might work for Win7):

http://forums.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26692

One other thing, did you download this game? If so, depending where you downloaded it, the game might Not need to be Installed, the game is already fully installed (or expanded to play); you just have to use the file that Starts the game via Dosbox of course.
Just a thought.

Good luck in getting your game going
Ray

Thanks for the information. My DOSBOX is version 0.65, but I hadn't even thought of downloading the latest version, so will do that next week when I have more time. My game is a CD-ROM, not a downloaded file, that I purchased some years ago from Amazon.com or someplace like that. I think the copyright date is 1996. I'll also check into downloading D-Fend. I've never used it before, but I'm willing to give it a try and see what happens.

I updated my DOSBOX version to 0.74 but still couldn't get "Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel" to run. I tried Inferno's task manager setup and installed VDM Sound 2.0, but when I tried to run the game, I got an error message saying that the VDD Loader file wasn't installed or couldn't load. I checked the folder, and the file was there, so I don't know why it wouldn't load. I think if I could fix this error, the game might run.

Also, I tried to run "Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo" to run using Inferno's task manager setup as much as possible, and the VDM sound thing, but I still keep getting errors about the game not being able to run fullscreen. I changed the settings to show normal screen or minimized, but it still won't run. I tried to install it through DOSBOX, but I couldn't get it to install to the C directory or any other, using the DOS commands. I also tried to run it in Windows 95 compatibility mode, but still got the fullscreen error message.

I have Windows 7 Professional Edition and am running Internet Explorer 8 Optimized for Yahoo. I am even using the Administrator privilege setting, but still can't get either game to install or run.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Call1e

If you have 64-bit Windows 7, you're going to have trouble running a 16-bit program like Case of the Serrated Scalpel outside of an emulator. However if you have a 32-bit version you can try copying vdd.dll to your C:\Windows\System32 folder
At least I found two places where they said "Note to Vista and Windows 7 users: you need to copy the VDDLoader.dll file from the VDMSound install directory to the \windows\system32 folder before rebooting."
***Metzomagic's site*** and ***Vogons*** both say to copy vddloader.dll to your C:\Windows\System32 folder.



I don't know about the fullscreen error, but I'm not sure the game actually has an install beyond a sound configuration file and folder for saves. Some early CD games were like that.


If you're playing DOS games, we need to know if you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows. 64-bit Windows is not backward compatible with 16-bit programs, so you'll have to use an emulator like DOSBox if you have 64-bit.

I moved the vdd.dll loader file into the system32 folder, but the main problem I'm having right now with both "The Case of the Rose Tattoo" and "The Case of the Serrated Scalpel" is not running them, but just getting them installed.

I tried Inferno's task manager setup for The Serrated Scalpel, and tried to do as much of it as I could on The Rose Tattoo, but neither game would install.

I've set both game settings to read "normal" window, but the computer still says that fullscreen mode can't be run on my system (Windows 7, 32-bit, Internet Explorer 8). Is there any fix for this?

I also installed D-Fend, but still haven't been able to install either game yet. On The Serrated Scalpel, I can get it to only install the sound and audio files, but not the game files (in DOS Mode) and on The Rose Tattoo, I get an error saying that: "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CMD.EXE does not support fullscreen mode. Choose "close" to terminate the application." I can click on "close" or "ignore" , but when I click on "ignore", I get an error saying that "NTVDM.EXE has stopped working" and can only close the game.

This is getting really frustrating not being able to install and run these games.

I have the Consulting Detective games 1, 2, and 3, and run them through DOSBOX and they run just fine in my Windows 7, so I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with the other two Sherlock games.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Call1e

Progress update:

I was searching on the web for a solution to my games not being able to install and run, but I read somewhere where you could go in and diable your display adapter, and the game would run in fullscreen. I did this, and got The Case of the Serrated Scalpel to install the game files, and run as an administrator, but now I can't find the sound files that I could see yesterday. Could someone please tell me where to look to install the sound files for The Case of the Serrated Scalpel in DOS mode?

I'm still working on installing The Case of the Rose Tattoo. Will try installing it with the display adapter disabled later, after I get the Case of the Serrated Scalpel done.

Thanks,
Call1e

Is that the one ***Here on Inferno's site***?

or the one here?
http://www.gameboomers.com/Members/dosboxfaq.html


Do you have a full screen monitor or a wide screen monitor? The games might not run full screen if you you have a widescreen monitor. And with Rose Tattoo, there could be a VESA problem unless you run the game inside DOSBox or another emulator.


D-Fend should be used along with DOSBox. It's supposed to help with configuring DOSBox.


The installer isn't going to install everything on the game disc. That's the way these installers were on the old CD games from the 1990's. They only installed the files that were used the most. Hard drives in the 1990's were often too small to hold all the files on the CD.


You may have to play it Windowed. Does it give you the same error if you set DOSBox to play Windowed? Otherwise you'll have to change your desktop resolution to whatever the game is using, which is probably 640x480 or less.


The Consulting Detective games are an entirely different series, use a different game engine, and are made by a different developer. So there's not much similarity between the Consulting Detective games and the Lost Files (Serrated Scalpel and Rose Tattoo) games.

There are some tips for running Serrated Scalpel (aka Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes #1) here
http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=83&letter=L
but they're kind of vague. A lot of people seem to have trouble with it, though interestingly someone using DOSBox version 7.0 says they had no problems while two people using DOSBox 7.4 posted that they did have problems.

This is the kind of situation where Inland has more experience than I do. I've only played Rose Tattoo booted to DOS mode on an old 233 MHz computer. I've never played it in an emulated environment like DOSBox.

Yes, I used the Inferno site (the first link you posted). I've never even seen the second link you posted. I've been running both games under "Administrator" settings, and will see if they can be installed without them.

The DOS page link you posted last was very confusing, and I don't think I'll use it.

Yes, I get the "can't be run in fullscreen" error message even if I try to run it windowed.

What is a VESA problem?

Thanks,
Call1e

Some adventure games from the mid-1990's used non-standard VESA modes to make the games look better. It worked OK back on 1990's video cards, which supported these VESA modes, but it doesn't work so well on newer video cards which only support documented VESA modes.

Serrated Scalpel would not be affected (1992 is too old). But the Rose Tattoo box says it needs a VESA 1.2 compliant video card. DOSBox can take care of emulating VESA, but I'm not sure if VDMSound can do it in Windows 7.

You never mentioned if you have a widescreen monitor or not. DOSBox should be able to play the game windowed if that's the case. I don't know why it isn't working for you, but I'm not the DOSBox expert around here.

I loaded D-Fend and put DOSBOX in it and it seems to be running The Serrated Scalpel, O.K. now, except I can't hear any sound, and when it does try to play the sounds, it is really fast and garbled--like the Chipmunks sound like when they talk.

Can anyone help with this sound problem?

I have a widescreen monitor, but finally got the game running with all of the VDM Sound things, DOSBOX, and D-Fend loaded--except for the sound problem--but I'm running the game in windowed mode, although it looks like it is covering the entire screen.

While I'm waiting on some help for the sound problem, I'll work on getting the Rose Tattoo up and running.

Thanks for all the help from everyone.

Call1e

I'm glad to hear you got Serrated Scalpel mostly working. The only speech is in the cut scenes at beginning and end of the game in Serrated Scalpel, but you miss other sounds by not having the sound working properly.

I'm not sure if it will help, but you're supposed to be able to adjust DOSBox to run slower by adjusting cycles (try fewer cycles to slow it down). Doing that might help with too-fast sound.

I found a post online where someone showed the DOSBox configuration he used in order to get the sound working properly in Serrated Scalpel (and for the game to run optimally in general). He was running DOSBox 0.74:

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullresolution=1280x800
windowresolution=original
output=ddraw
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt
usescancodes=true

#

language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=30

#

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=hq3x

#

core=auto
cycles=auto
cycleup=1000
cycledown=1000

#

nosound=false
rate=48000
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=20

#

mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=

#

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=5
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=48000

#

gus=false
gusrate=22050
gusbase=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

#

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=48000
tandy=auto
tandyrate=48000
disney=true

#

joysticktype=auto
timed=true
autofire=false
swap34=false
buttonwrap=true

#

serial1=dummy
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled

#

xms=true
ems=true
umb=true
keyboardlayout=none

#

ipx=false

Thanks for the information, but where do I put this information that you typed?

I'm still trying to install and run The Case of the Rose Tattoo in Windows 7.

I can't install the game from DOS. I have to install it from the CD-ROM drive. When I get all of the settings changed to match the setup for the Serrated Scalpel as much as possible according to Inferno's setup, I click on install and the computer loads up a fullscreen blank screen and there isn't anything to see on the screen as to whether the game is trying to load or not. I then have to eject the disk and reboot the computer to get back to my desktop.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Call1e

The information Marian typed would go in the dosbox.conf file. You'd have to edit the dosbox.conf file using Notepad. If you decide to do this, be sure to back up the original dosbox.conf before you do any editing, just in case.

Some more tips for tweaking the sound in DOSBox ***here***

I finally got the Serrated Scalpel up and running, using only the VDM Sound files and the setup that Inferno posted.

However, I'm still having trouble installing the Case of the Rose Tattoo on Windows 7. Whenever I click on the "install" button, the computer just goes to a black, blank screen, and I have to reboot the computer to get back to my desktop. You are supposed to be able to install the game from Windows 95 mode or from DOS, but when I try to get it to install from DOS, I just get a screen saying that "you must install it from the menu", and I don't know how to copy the menu from DOS to the Windows 95 mode.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Call1e