Quote:
3/ The GameOptions program will now auto-detect if your operating system is
Windows XP or earlier or Vista / Win7 and any future OS Microsoft may
release. If it finds you are running an operating system newer than Windows
XP it will automatically run a command line that shuts windows explorer down
briefly then restarts it ONLY IF you have the game set to run in FULL SCREEN
MODE.
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There should be a beter way to fix the game on Windows 7 / Vista machines than force killing explorer.exe.
Games such as Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Starcraft and Fallout have all had the same color palette messup when running on those newer operating systems. And it is from forums for those games that I found out that they all work when a DirectDraw Compatibility registry patch is used.
See Microsoft has build in compatibility modes for old DirectDraw aplications that are wery poorly documented! The fixes are build in the operating system, but need to be enabled in the windows registry to work.
The compatibility mode can be found in windows Registry under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\C ompatibility\
On 64 bit machines the path is a little different in that it has the "WOW6432Node" path in it.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ DirectDraw\Compatibility\
So below there are the fixes for SPMBT v.5.00 only. This will most likely not work on older or newer versions of the game. For those one needs to write a new reg file with the correct value for the ID field matching the values in the .exe.
Copy paste the text below to notepad and save it as SPMBT_ddrawfix.reg for example. The .reg part is the important one. Then run the file you created and it will update your register.
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\winSPMBT-v5]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="winSPMBT.exe"
"ID"=hex:81,62,A6,4B
And if you have a 64-bit operating system you need the text below instead:
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\winSPMBT-v5]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="winSPMBT.exe"
"ID"=hex:81,62,A6,4B
If this works you should not be getting any color problems and you do not need the cmd file to start the game. And most importantly it is not closing your explorer.exe. Its just using a compatibility mode built into Windows itself.
Here are the links for discussion about the color bug in Fallout and Command & Conquer for referance:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56175
http://www.cnc-comm.com/community/index.php?topic=711.0
Unfortunately I dont have access to a Win7 computer to test this so I don't know if it will work for SPMBT too. My apologies if it does not work. However im sure some compatibility option will fix the color issue without the need to use special tricks to close the explorer.