Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Tiffany
   Member

   Hi guys, I did have trouble playing this game as I am now a Windows 10 user like most game players and I found a solution to this games problem.

   I know the game is no longer offered through GGOTD but you can get this from another game site that I will not mention the name of due to respect of this forum website.

   When you download the game, right click on the game icon open file location and click Troubleshoot Compatibility on the game icon. This will start the box for trouble shooting. Then click on Trouble Shoot Program. If any of the boxes are ticked, then untick them and only have I Dont See my Problem ticked. Then tick Windows 7 and next. It will then do some more checking and then ask you to Test the Program. If all is good, then click Next and it will save the settings for you.

   I also think that this solution may help any other games with the same compatibility problems.

   Thank you.

   Posted 8 years ago #
2. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   Tiffany, that compatibility troubleshooter has been around for a while. I had to use it several times when I transitioned games from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1. It doesn't work all the time. If the issue is a graphics issue (like a flickering screen), then it is not likely to work.

   However, that being said -- it is always worth a try! The only problem is it doesn't tell you what it's changing and it is not always easy to determine what it did so you can try it yourself if you get another game of the same series.

   Posted 8 years ago #
3. 

   Terri218
   Member

   When I copied the Exorcist.exe file shortcut to my desktop it came in with the MPC icon. There is an engine.exe which has the Exorcist icon. Which is the correct one to use? I prefer to skip all the extras that come when you use the icon the game provides. I have not played the game yet. Thanks.

   Posted 8 years ago #
4. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   Terri,

   Make your own shortcut from the engine.exe file. That skips all the overhead of MPC garbage.

   If the particular game doesn't have engine.exe, use game.exe.

   Posted 8 years ago #
5. 

   Tiffany
   Member

   I am surprised you guys mentioned the engine.exe file. I always use that file when in MPC. I didn't mention it in my last post because I once got more or less told not to mention it. If you know what I mean.

   Dragonlair, when I used the compatibility mode I knew what it was changing it to because that is why I mentioned to skip those other boxes and go straight to ... I don't see my problem..box. You can then click on a number of OS and try it.

   When I downloaded the Exorcist I could not even get the game to open. All it did was spin that little blue circle and died. This way I actually did get it open and was able to play the game. A lot of people do not know about that Troubleshoot Compatibility or forget its there. A lot of people expect the game to be able to download and play straight away.

   Posted 8 years ago #
6. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   Tiffany,

   I have had good luck in general transitioning any given game from one OS to another. Windows 7 has some sort of compatibility and I have had to use that to change to something else to get a game to work. Over all, my rate is over 99% success in installing a game in a newer version of Windows.

   I had a few games with Windows 8.1 that it did not tell me what I changed. It managed to get the game to work but I never found out why.

   Most of my problems in transitioning is the difference in graphics. There is one game that I can play in Windows 8.1 but Windows 7 refuses to even start the game. That problem is known. I have high DPI set! Even though I set the flag to ignore the scaling it still notes that the setting is there and refused to do it. I also have high DPI set on the Windows 8.1 laptop but not as high a level. The game works there. Why? I haven't got the foggiest idea. The game -- "Murder, She Wrote, 2". And it is the game. I've seen it from MPC and from a Legacy CD have the same issue. That's why I have never even tried to get the first Murder, She Wrote game.

   Like any transition or new install -- never assume it's going to work. Always be prepared to check things out. Many of my games refused to even start until I set that scaling flag because they think the resolution is too low to play. A little fiddling often yields extremely satisfying results!

   Note -- the Anti-virus and other software are as close as I get get to each other within the scope of different versions of the OS.

   Posted 8 years ago #
7. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Most of my problems in transitioning is the difference in graphics. There is one game that I can play in Windows 8.1 but Windows 7 refuses to even start the game. That problem is known. I have high DPI set! Even though I set the flag to ignore the scaling it still notes that the setting is there and refused to do it. I also have high DPI set on the Windows 8.1 laptop but not as high a level. The game works there. Why? I haven't got the foggiest idea.

   It's up to the developer how closely they follow Microsoft's recommendations on making their app or game work well with high DPI -- since 99% of your games work, I'd bet that whomever wrote "Murder, She Wrote, 2" didn't pay much attention to those recommendations.

   Posted 8 years ago #
8. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   The high DPI problem is easy to spot more than 95% of the time. Any of 3 possible issues are noted -- the game won't start with a message that your resolution is too low; it won't go into windowed mode, usually with a similar message; or you see only part of the screen -- either the middle quarter or, more often, the upper left quarter.

   That last case is most common with older games. Most of the newer 8Floor games on the freebie circuit are of the first 2 cases.

   Posted 8 years ago #
9. 

   ChrisS
   Administrator

   For the Windows 7 PC, if you haven't already, you might also want to check "disable desktop composition" and "disable visual themes". Depending on how it installed you might also need to check "run as administrator". The game appears to be XP-compatible so there's no reason it shouldn't run on Windows 7. Maybe getting it to run is the bonus Mystery?

   I don't think there's an easy way to tell what changes the troubleshooter makes. I've always had to dig through the Event Viewer logs to find what changed and I'm not sure that all changes are listed. Presumably, you could take registry snapshots before and after running the troubleshooter but I've never tried.

   Posted 8 years ago #
10. 

    mikiem2
    Moderator

    Presumably, you could take registry snapshots before and after running the troubleshooter but I've never tried.

    Yes, I've used regshot or regshot2, but it can be hard to tell the wheat from the chaff, & then you might only see flag values, so it's more useful IMHO if you want to try applying those registry entries to another copy of Windows.

    If you're after a better understanding of what's broken compatibility wise, might take a look at this: technet[.]microsoft[.]com/en-us/itpro/windows/plan/act-technical-reference

    Posted 8 years ago #

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