Re: Windows 7 and old games

Has anyone tried to run Lightbringer (or Cydonia - the 5 disc version) on a Windows 7 computer?

I dug out my old Cydonia version but the computer doesn't seem to like it at all. Has anyone produced a tweak list?

petert

PS - I did try to install Virtual PC but with no success. There was a thread in the dim and distant past that explained how to do this but I seem to have lost the instructions.

The Virtual PC 2004 FAQ is not a thread. It's one of the headings near the top of the Glitches page where it says:

DOS FAQs & Utilities * DOSBox FAQs * VIRTUAL PC 2004 FAQ * Legacy Games & Hyperthreading

The ***Virtual PC 2007 FAQ*** at the Metzomagic website is the updated version.

Thank you, Jenny100.
I did not realise that there is that heading at the top of the page.

Shades of the old instruction that teachers used to give to 'Read the exam paper all through before attempting to answer the questions'.
None so blind as those that cannot see.

petert

We all do that -- miss what's right in front of our faces because we expect it to be somewhere else.

You may want to go into your BIOS and disable hardware virtualization. It's often called Intel-VT or AMD-V but may be called something else. If you don't disable it, there's a chance Windows 98 inside Virtual PC will run too fast for the game and make it more prone to crashing.

Managed to get W98 running I Virtual PC, but it seems that I cannot load any games.

In the old 98 computer, I could check 'My computer' and I would get an icon referring to the D drive, where I had loaded in the appropriate game CD, but in my current set up with W98 running on my Windows 7 machine, the D drive is apparently not available.
So how am I supposed to load in the old W98 games?

I will keep trying but I don't think I ever had this problem before.

petert

Check the Virtual PC menu when the Windows 98 VM is running.
Under "CD" there should be an option to "Use Physical Drive."

http://cdn.sysprobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/image_thumb2.png

If you used an iso to install Windows 98, Virtual PC may still be set to use an iso instead of the physical drive.

If there isn't any option for a CD drive in that menu, check the page below for how to adjust settings to use a physical drive.
http://www.sysprobs.com/mount-iso-files-cd-dvd-drive-virtual-pc

I think that I have managed to load in Cydonia, though I'm not quite sure how I managed it!

The sound seems a bit jerky and inclined to repeat so all is not entirely well. But it is progress.
Perhaps it is due to the speed of the W7 machine.
Don't think I dare to poke about in the BIOS.

Thanks for all your help so far.

petert

If you don't want to look in the BIOS, you can try running a PC slowdown program like Moslo on the Windows 98 inside of the Virtual Machine.

You can find links to slowdown utilities here
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SlowdownUtilities.html
or here
http://www.geocities.ws/kulhain/

I don't know if it will affect the sound, but when I ran Shivers 2 inside of Virtual PC, I had to slow it down with Moslo because the panning in the game was too fast.

I have never tried to log on to the internet when I have W98 running, simply because of the horror stories about the vulnerability of older operating systems to viruses and the like.

Presumably the only safe way to do it is to download a slowdown utility under Windows 7 and then copy the utility into Virtual PC using a memory stick or a CD.

petert

PS - Cydonia is running reasonably well at the moment, but there is no dialogue at present,

You don't have to go on the Internet with the virtual machine to move files into the Virtual Machine.

The way I move files to the Virtual PC with Windows 98 is to create an .iso that includes the file(s) I want to put on the Virtual machine using a CD burning program like imgburn or Nero (or any program that can create iso files).

Then mount the iso as a CD using the controls in the Virtual PC menu.

Then inside the Virtual Machine you can copy the files off what Windows 98 thinks is the CD drive.

Once you've finished copying the files, you can change the Virtual PC controls back to recognizing your physical CD/DVD drive as the Virtual Machine's CD drive.

+_+_+_+

Another way to move files into the Virtual machine (which I've only used with XP but might also work with 98) is to tell Virtual PC to mount a folder on your hard drive as an external drive for the Windows inside the Virtual Machine. I've had trouble with having the virtual "external drive" detected unless I put the files I want into it before starting Virtual PC.

Not able to remember how 'tell Virtual PC to mount a folder on the hard drive as an external hard drive for the Windows inside the virtual machine'

No, I'll rephrase that - I have no idea at all how to do it.

petert

Hmmm...
Apparently you first need to install Virtual PC Additions.
I've used the "Additions" with XP and Win2000 guests, but not Win98. From Googling, the additions for Virtual PC 2007 don't include Windows 98, but Additions for Virtual PC 2004 do. Here are a couple of websites that discuss this. The essjae website has a link to a download of the 2004 additions under "VPC2004SP1 Additions Download."

***Technet discussion***

http://www.essjae.com/virtualization/

If you can't get a shared folder to work, moving files and folders from the host to the guest can be done by creating an iso file from the files/folders (using imgburn or Nero or your favorite alternative) and then mounting that iso as a CD in Virtual PC. It's easier if you can get a shared folder working though.