Windows 2000 backwards compatibility

[Philippe]

This is not really a Combat Mission question, but it happens to be one of the few places I can get an intelligent question to something like this.

Windows 2000 doesn't work on a lot of games that were designed to run on 95 or 98.

I heard recently that one particular one that I have been itching to play for several years (Great Battles of History) could be massaged into compatibility with a patch that gives Windows 2000 many of the backwards compatibility features of Windows XP. As a computer non-literate, I have no idea whether I am talking gibberish or not.

A while back I became aware of something called a Service pack, and took a stab at setting it up and running it. I never succeeded, got a lot of crashes (but apparently no data loss), and my system didn't seem to operate quite as smoothly as it had before. I'm sure I messed up in the installation, but decided to rip it out of my system and not worry about it for a while.

Now I've just realized that I'm working on a huge project, and that even with back-ups, a crash resulting in data-loss would be catastrophic ( translation = no flag mod with US and Commonwealth shoulder patches). So I'm inclined to put all of this on hold for a few weeks until after the next CMMOS release.

But when the smoke clears and I want to take a break from CM and find out what really happened at Granicus (by setting up each of the sixteen different theories of how the battle was supposed to have worked, and seeing what they do under the Richard Berg model -- which I could do on the board game, but who has the time and patience for something like that --), I'd like to take a swing at doing something new with my system [shudder].

So any comments on what I did wrong (I think I was being asked to enter some command lines of code or something to start the conversion, and they never took), and/or where I might find this mythical patch that will solve all my problems (it came from a very common site, and what I think it did was link you into Bill Gates and Co.), I would truly be grateful.

I still have warm recollections of the wonderful help I got in upgrading my video drivers. And I actually do look in here from time to time when I don't have a problem, because I've found that every time I start reading one of the threads, I usually end up learning something, and sometimes its even useful.

[WWB]

Hmm, service pack installs tend to go slow and easy. Best way to do it is to download the whole SP (currently SP3, weighing in at 124mb) and install it, with the rollback files should that make you feel any better.

The compatibility update is not in the service packs and critical updates section of windows update, but in the Windows 2000 section (IIRC). Just check it off to download and install at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com .

You might want to shut down any antivirus you are running before installing these, as well as any running programs. I would kill everything in your system tray to be on the safe side.

Also, applying a new SP is one of the best ways to recover a Windows 2000 install. Only times I have seen one mess things up are:

1) When Novell was involved (very weird and likely inappliciable--I can explain if need be)

2) When I lost power 1/2 way through the non-cancelable part of the install.

WWB

PS: I understand the Granicus fetish. I have walked one of the proposed sites, very interesting battle.

[ August 20, 2002, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ]

[BeWary]

Windows 2000 actually runs most games just fine once you install Service Pack 2 (or higher). I think DirectX 8.1 is part of SP2, but if it's not, download it from www.microsoft.com/directx.

Here're the service packs:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/

Hope everything goes well. Just remember to let the service pack back up your system files before it runs, just in case.

BeWary

[Ron]

I think this is what you are looking for, it offers backward compatibility for Win 95/98/NT.

MKBA Q279792