How to play old(er) games on Vista

Dunkelseele

Dunkelseele

New Member
Hey all,

I recently had trouble installing and playing some old games, that formerly run good on XP (although a little tweaking could be necessary). I feel that some people might have trouble playing their old favorites on Vista for on or another reason, and I will try to do my best to list solutions for games in this thread. I encourage you all to list your workarounds for certain problems here. Maybe we get this thread sticky one day if it has grown enough... ; )
 

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo E8400 @2x3,00Ghz
    Motherboard
    MSI P35 Neo
    Memory
    2x 2Gb
    Graphics card(s)
    Nvidia Geforce 9800GT @512Mb
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2x Samsung SyncMaster 943NW
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 Pixels
    Hard Drives
    1x Samsung 40 Gib 1x Samsung 80 Gib 1x Samsung 500 Gib
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Hi! I'll start this list of tutorials how to get old games running on Vista again with one of my favorites:
​

C&C: Red Alert 2

Symptom: The game will install normally on most machines. But after starting it via the shortcut or ra2.exe (in the games install folder) the following error shows up: "***FATAL*** String manager failed to initialized properly".

Solution: You will need to open the games install folder and open the properties of ra2.exe, mhd.exe and game.exe. Change to "compatability" and check "run as administrator" as well as set the compatability mode to "Windows 98 / Windows ME".

If User Account Control is activated on your account, do the following:
Start game.exe,mhd.exe and then ra2.exe (in that particular order!), select "Allow" each time you are asked.

If User Account Control is deactivated for you, you can simply start the ra2.exe
(or your desktop shortcut to the game).

If the game still not runs (giving you the same error) you will need to start the ra2.exe via rightlick "run as administrator". Everything should be fine now. You should also be able to run the game normally via your shortcuts after doing this whole procedure one time. Please let me know if there are still issues.

Best regards,
Noël
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Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo E8400 @2x3,00Ghz
    Motherboard
    MSI P35 Neo
    Memory
    2x 2Gb
    Graphics card(s)
    Nvidia Geforce 9800GT @512Mb
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2x Samsung SyncMaster 943NW
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 Pixels
    Hard Drives
    1x Samsung 40 Gib 1x Samsung 80 Gib 1x Samsung 500 Gib
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