So I've been trying to play some older PC titles on my computer and I'm having some weird issues with a few of them... (Games are from around 1998 btw, and I'm using Windows 7)

Problem Number 1: A couple games aren't even being recognized as games but rather some kind of media file and Windows wants to use Media Player to read them.

Problem Number 2: One game is recognized as a game with the .exe file and when I boot it up and click install, I get this:

I don't know what the fuck "%s" is referring to but I went into the game files and tried to run SETUP.EXE and I get this:

I've tried tinkering with Compatibility mode but I still get the same results. I've heard some people recommend running it through a Virtual Machine. Would that help with this particular issue? It ran fine on my old piece of shit Windows XP computer, so I'm guessing I should just download the XP one from Microsoft?

Thanks for any tips and advice. Most of these games are pretty awful, and I should not be giving any effort into playing them but I am.

Yeah you want to run a virtual machine and install Windows XP onto it.

Problem Number 1: A couple games aren't even being recognized as games but rather some kind of media file and Windows wants to use Media Player to read them.

It depends on the game, but usually this happens with FMV games. Games like an old (Win 95) release of Dragons Lair (for example) don't run on modern computers. It was a completely back end issue (based on the video compression engine they used to run the game) and the company who made it (in the example of Dragons Lair) was going to keep releasing the game on newer hardware and had no interest in making the old versions of it work even though they technically could. At least they were honest about that, though.

In your case, I would need more info to figure out why that is. It is possible the game won't work on a newer computer, but often you just need to know how to get around the problem it's having. Often the problem lies with how it understands the code and translates it.

Problem Number 2: One game is recognized as a game with the .exe file and when I boot it up and click install, I get this:

Hmm... I have that game. It sucks so I don't really get nostalgia to play it, but I often play old games (older than that game) and haven't had that problem. The error you're getting suggests it may not be able to run on a x64 system which is a problem you usually can only get around with hacks.

I tried it myself and get the same error. It actually reminds me of an error you get trying to run the original Grim Fandango (this game has the same Lucasarts installer they used for years so it probably has something to do with that). It doesn't like 64 bit systems (it's a 32 bit installer). The only way they could get around it with Grim Fandango was basically hacking the exe. It's much more complicated than most games of that era (or older even) to get running on a 64 bit computer. I would blame Lucasarts for that.

Curse of Monkey Island uses that installer too. Thus I haven't been able to play it for years.

Anyway, a cursory glance at google tells me this is an issue a lot of people have. If I had to guess it's probably an issue with all Lucasarts games and this installer specifically. The game itself works if you can get it installed. No mention of how to install it, that I could quickly find, though *shrug*

@corevi@cornbredx Thanks for the advice, I'll give the Virtual Machine a test tomorrow when I can be bothered to find an old XP CD laying around.

I'm honestly shocked there's so many people who were trying to also play the game. It sucks so bad and the only reason I'm trying to play it is to gather footage. Crazy, crazy people.

If worst comes to worst, there's like over a dozen computers in this house and I'm sure many of them could handle the game. I do also own the PS1 version so... there's also that.

@turtlebird95: to be fair I only checked a couple of places on a google search and came up with multiple videos for the podracing game (apparently it's popular to get that game running on Win 7) and I read a few forum posts from 2011 of people using windows 7 having the same issue you're describing (for Episode 1) and all of them used some blog that detailed files (probably hacks if I had to guess) you could use to get it to install. That blog or whatever is no longer accessible.

I also read (well one guy said this in 2011 on some random forum) that using a virtual machine did not work because it made the game unplayable (low frame rate was what I read). I don't know how accurate that is, but be aware that may be the case, I guess. I don't know. I don't typically use VMs. I never needed to (not even for Win 3.1 which I run through DosBox).

This is probably the worst advice but: gog.com. I gave up on getting old games to run and just pick them up for a few bucks. It saves you a lot of time and headache honestly.

But gog doesn't have the specific game he's trying to run.

Have you tried the PC Gaming Wiki? It's a godsend for troubleshooting problems with old games. Here's a link to Star Wars Ep 1 - Link

Sounds like you *might* be able to get around the install problems by dumping files manually.

Run a Virtual Machine with old Windows on it. Should work fine. if you're going to go with XP on the virtual machine it should be a 32bit version of the OS though. I think that's the issue you're running into here. SETUP.EXE is a probably 16 or 32 bit executable and those don't like 64 bit Windows so much. However, I'm pretty sure most copies of XP out there are x86 (32 bit) so its probably not an issue but mentioning it just in case.

EDIT: I'm sure someone will correct me if this is the case, but I hope I'm not giving you false information. I'm a bit of a layman when it comes to this kind of stuff, but this is how I'm understanding your situation.