Gaming old style..

[E-Liam]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get a couple of games loaded onto my new machine:- Half Life (1) and Star wars (The Phantom Menace)

They're old games, so should run fine on my new box.. (XP Home SP2) but I can't install them. I get the message..

C.\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application.

Any ideas? I've googled of course, but before following the advice of strangers, I'd thought I'd try the gamers here. It seems to be a fairly common problem with XP and older games.

I've never played them before, but thought that over the weekend, with a bit of spare time, I'd just blow some monsters up.. :cool:

Cheers

Liam

ps. Free HJT analysis to anyone who can help.. :)

[HelenD]

Have you tried running them under a different mode using the run as option? I have heard some games have a problem with SP2 and the unhelpful advice usually offered is remove SP2.

[Paterbrat]

About old style gaming, the grandkids have discovered Tetris and I wanted to try and get it for my PC for when they come and visit. Have XP and was wondering if I can get the game somewhere and will it run? I used to have it a long time ago on a 5" floppy in a gamepack can't find and it would be unloadable anyway as probably for a much earlier windows.

[El lute]

Paterbrat,
go to www.astatix.com/crazytetris.php (sorry, don't know yet how to post a link). This has 6 different Tetris versions as free download.
Have fun.

[P.Pilcher]

E-liam - may I suggest that you try dosbox. This is available for free download and enables many old dos based games to be run in modern environments. It also enables such games to run at sensible speeds! You can get it here (dosbox.sourceforge.net)

Best wishes

P.P.

[spannersatcx]

I refer the right honourable gentlemen to the answer I gave earlier here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=156067) :ok:

[E-Liam]

Hi, and thanks for the help.

Can't get Dosbox to do anything so far.. admittedly I'm in a bit of a rush to go out.. Re: the MS site.. the first options to run cmd and enter the strings doesn't work, and I haven't got time this evening to do the second half of it now.. but thanks anyway, and I'll have another go in the morning, or failing all else, flog them on ebay and egt some games that will work in XP. And there was me thinking that XP was completely backwards compatable.. :)

Cheers

Liam.

Off to bounce at the club. The bain of all big hairy fellas on New Years Eve.. :p

Happy New Year.

[spannersatcx]

I couldn't get the first bit to work either, I had to extract from the CD to get it to work.

[Agent86]

I have had a couple of request from work mates about this.

Something is out there deleting the autoexec.nt file:* or Micro$oft have a little "undocumented feature" (as I like to call them):O

I found an easy fix on another forum. The admin has stickied his fix here (http://www.webuser.co.uk/cgi-bin/forums/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=tips&Number=136162&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=93&part=)

I have also found the autoexec.nt file hiding in C : \windows\repair . A quick copy/Paste to C : \windows\system32 and away you go


Happy new year to all

MAx

[Massey Man]

Nope, XP is not downwardly compatible with many programs.

I hope MS are not claiming this? If they are they are lying.

It uses NTFS, and i dont think you can make it use FAT32 as you can in 2000. Some programs that were designed to run on FAT32 simply wont on NTFS. That may be the issue with your games, i dont know to be honest - im not a gamer, or a computer geek!

[BEagle]

No - you can't beat an old K-tel 'pong' game plugged into the RF socket of your TV...........

It seemed so hi-tech at the time!

[Paterbrat]

Thanks very much El Lute actualy had found a very simple version which has already consumed a lot of the holiday period. Seriously addictive. Worried about trying yet another but here goes.

[terryJones]

E-Liam
I too am a 'First person shooter' fan.
Last year I bought Halflife and the other three, only to find they would not work on XP.
Ebay however soon came up with a newer version of Halflife 1, blue shift and the others, which I have since loaded with no trouble.
I had Halflife2 for christmas, but not tried it yet, as its the DVD rom version, so until I get a dvd player I am snookered...

Happy new year to one and all.

[BRL]

Terry, I have a DVD ROM here that I don't use anymore in my old PC if you want it.

Liam, I used to do Half Life when it first came out, it's pretty good as they go you should enjoy it. A little tip for you, use the right mouse button as the 'forward' command instead of secondary weapon, it is miles better like that.

All the best. :)

[terryJones]

BRL, check PM's

[Bigwings]

It uses NTFS, and i dont think you can make it use FAT32 as you can in 2000

You can make it use FAT 32, it's an option you have to select when you first install XP, if you don't change it then the default load is NTFS

Bigwings :ok: