King's quest VIII

Hello,first of all excuse me for any grammatical error i may do, but this isn't my mother language. Recently i've been trying to run 'king's quest 8-Mask of eternity' on windows Vista home premium(32 bit) but im having some problems. After install i click on the game launcher icon,and all i get is a blank pop up, the game image on my screen and an error message from Vista. The game was made some years ago, for win 98. Any help would be appreciated. thanks in advantage

Hi wushu1991.....

have you tried to run the game in compatibility mode for win98..??, if so & it still wont work, uninstall it & actually reinstall it in compatibility mode & then run it.

SK

Hi!
Thanks for the answer, actually i've tried to run it in compatibility mode, but i didn't install it that way!
ill try asap
thanks!

ah, if i run the install wizard in compatibility mode it freezes after few second... O_O
do u think i may have more luck trying win 98 on a virtual machine?

wushu1991 said:

ah, if i run the install wizard in compatibility mode it freezes after few second... O_O
do u think i may have more luck trying win 98 on a virtual machine?

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I'm pretty sure that a virtual machine wont work because the free VM by microsoft doesnt do directX (neither video OR sound). Any games/graphics/sound that are non-directx will work, but I'm pretty sure that KQ8 does use directx. (maybe a newer version of msvm will support DX? as of spring 2008 it didnt). Was kq8 DOS compatible? if so you could try dOSbox, that might do the trick. if anyone ever gets this working let me know. even if you find this thread months or years after it was written, i'm pretty sure the forum will email me if you post your message as a reply to mine. anyway, nice to know i'm not the only kings quest fan trying to run those games under vista. I saw a company redoing the old non-3d kq games, but i think they arent free downloads... also saw that a new kings quest is on the way, but honestly it looks pretty crappy. I think theyve been working on writing it for several years with very little progress, and whats already been written doesnt look too promising. I wouldnt be that surprised if the project gets dumped. dmanit, i wanna see some kings quest 3d, and ultima 3d get their remakes, and done right, before i'm too old and on a breathing machine! (i'd still probably try to play with one of those mouth-joysticks if i had too) <G>

Hi thanks for the answer.
I would like to discuss with you about the king's quest series, but im a little slow with english(it's not my mother language as you see!)and it would take me half day to tell you my point of view.
I had some problem running vmWare, so i'll try dosbox as soon as possible.
And if i still get any problem, well, i'll probably install windows xp on a partition, wich might run the game
goodbye!

wushu1991 said:

Hi thanks for the answer.
I would like to discuss with you about the king's quest series, but im a little slow with english(it's not my mother language as you see!)and it would take me half day to tell you my point of view.
I had some problem running vmWare, so i'll try dosbox as soon as possible.
And if i still get any problem, well, i'll probably install windows xp on a partition, wich might run the game
goodbye!

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Wushu,

I looked at the games requirements and it says win95/98. So I guess that means it was never meant for dos, and so probably wont run in dosbox. As for myself, I'm trying to run it under vista and am making no progress. I've tried all the compatabilty settings possible and had no luck. I noticed during the installation that it says it will install dx6 and "indeo". It told me that I already had a version of dx that was up to date, and then finished installing without ever giving a sign of having installed indeo. so I googled and then installed indeo. nothing. tried rebooting to make sure indeo was in gear, and....nothing!:sa: and yeah, I tried using win9x mode for the installation too and that didnt change anything. I noticed that there was a link for a patch here in this thread, but the link no longer works. tried looking all over the net for it and had no luck. I dont think it would have changed much anyway. I bet the patch would bring the game from a running/buggy state, to a good running state, but wouldnt bring it from non-functioning to functioning. Guess I'll have to seriously consider setting up for dual-but with xp, but am not sure its worth it just to run one game. Anyhow if you have any luck let me know. ps, I'm fluent in french and my wife is half french half spanish, so if your "mother language" is either french or spanish, have at it, and I'll have no problem understanding you. Good luck with the game!

ah, too bad, i'm italian.
And about the patch,here there's a working link, but that won't make any difference for your playing.
It's a shame for sierra(or windows?) that we don't have the possibility to run this game.
So far i believe that the only way is too dual boot. with win 95/98/xp

wushu1991 said:

ah, too bad, i'm italian.
And about the patch,here there's a working link, but that won't make any difference for your playing.
It's a shame for sierra(or windows?) that we don't have the possibility to run this game.
So far i believe that the only way is too dual boot. with win 95/98/xp

Click to expand...

wow! I just patched it, and instead of it crashing, it told me I need to put the disk in the drive! So I guess I'll have to go look in my basement for the original disk hmmm...what are the chances of finding it..ha! I guess the patch might have been alot more helpful than I imagined, so thanks for that link. If I make any more progress tonight I'll let you know. I think if my original disc may be too scratched up, I might have to use my backup/iso... not sure if that will work. if that poses a problem i'll have to find a way around that. I'll be back later tonight to let you know if I got anywhere..

ehm..i'm not trying to lead you to any not legal way to play MAE...but there are some patches around the web....try to google 'mask of eternity cd crack'... without the '..'

good luck
i've also found a possible way to play without partitioning the disk:
install win xp on an esternal usb hdd...
as always there are some guides and howto all around the web.use google xD

I "mounted" my backup with Dtools, that took care of it asking for the disk, but it still crashes now. So I'll have to reinstall xp with dual boot. I had already done dual-boot about ten years ago, but wanted to refresh my memory. I used this guide: How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

My drive already had 3 partitions, the third is just a tiny one and was perfect for installing a "mini xp" onto. of course just when everything seemed to be going fine I had a problem. when installing xp, it loads up its files, and then wants to reboot. and when it does reboot the pc hangs. luckily I had no problem repairing the MBR as the guide explains to get vista back up. I'm starting to lose hope. damn the things i do to try to play old/classic games.

I close this thread:
I can play Mask of eternity on windows xp without any problem.
good luck everyone ^^