Windows ME

[dynomike27]

I know that this is the wrong message boards, but I have a really important question. How do you improve system resources in Windows Millenium Edition? Is there software that could do it, or what? I would go to windows XP, but a lot of my programs aren't compatable for windows XP.

Thanks

[Ed Hansberry]

There is not much you can do. How do you know your apps aren't compatible with XP? Most things (besides some really old games) should work with no problem, and those that have glitches can usually be fixed by having XP run them in compatibility mode. THere are 4 settings:
Win95
Win98/ME
WinNT4 SP5
Win2K

I've never had to use that though.

[Janak Parekh]

(I moved the post to the Off-Topic forum where it really belongs.)

One of the fundamental problems in Win95, 98 and Me was the resource pool limits. I agree with Ed: unless you're running things like DOS games, most software should run flawlessly under XP. I've got rid of every 95/98/Me machine I've had about a year ago and haven't looked back.

--janak

[Kati Compton]

Actually, I've found that old DOS games run better on XP than they did on 98....

[Janak Parekh]

Actually, I've found that old DOS games run better on XP than they did on 98....
Depends on HOW old, I guess. If they only worked in the DOS-only mode and wrote directly to graphics hardware, I'd be real surprised to see them running on XP.

Admittedly, I haven't tried to play Commander Keen anytime recently. :D

--janak

[Kati Compton]

Depends on HOW old, I guess. If they only worked in the DOS-only mode and wrote directly to graphics hardware, I'd be real surprised to see them running on XP.

Admittedly, I haven't tried to play Commander Keen anytime recently. :D


I was more thinking Monkey Island and a few other LucasArts games.

[Ed Hansberry]

I was actually thinking of older Win95 games that require VXd's or even fail to install because the installer misinterprets the 2GB+ of free space as negative space. I have a few of those for the kids and they simply don't work.

[Janak Parekh]

I was more thinking Monkey Island and a few other LucasArts games.
Monkey Island, which is one of my all-time favorites, is an interesting game. It has very, very little WAV and other sounds for which it writes directly to the sound driver. In fact, you can live without those sounds for the most part. Most of the game's sounds (the cool music) was just CD tracks that the game would play.

Thanks for letting me know, BTW, that it works under XP. I might just play it again. That game was a barrel of monkeys, literally. :D Now, The 7th Guest might be a wee bit more difficult to get running...

--janak

[thepalmdefender]

I was actually thinking of older Win95 games that require VXd's or even fail to install because the installer misinterprets the 2GB+ of free space as negative space. I have a few of those for the kids and they simply don't work.

maybe keep an extra 1.8gb FAT32 partition just to make those games happy then?

[Dave Beauvais]

... Now, The 7th Guest might be a wee bit more difficult to get running...
Wow, now there's a memory... I absolutely loved that game! It was certainly groundbreaking at the time. (But I remember working on some of those puzzles for a long time.) I bought the sequel, The 11th Hour, but never got past the first puzzle. Not because it was too hard, but because the game ran so damn slow on the PC I had at the time. It met the minimum requirements -- barely -- but ran so slow as to be unplayable. (I was using a 486DX2 66 MHz, if I recall correctly.) I still have it on a shelf at home now that I think about it. I'm sure it would play very well on a machine with a 52X CD-ROM, GeForce 4, a 1 GHz PIII, and a 1 GB of RAM. :D Too bad I'd probably have to install Win98 or find some old DOS install disks to get it to work.

--Dave

[Steven Cedrone]

... Now, The 7th Guest might be a wee bit more difficult to get running...
Wow, now there's a memory... I absolutely loved that game! It was certainly groundbreaking at the time. (But I remember working on some of those puzzles for a long time.) I bought the sequel, The 11th Hour, but never got past the first puzzle. Not because it was too hard, but because the game ran so damn slow on the PC I had at the time. It met the minimum requirements -- barely -- but ran so slow as to be unplayable. (I was using a 486DX2 66 MHz, if I recall correctly.) I still have it on a shelf at home now that I think about it. I'm sure it would play very well on a machine with a 52X CD-ROM, GeForce 4, a 1 GHz PIII, and a 1 GB of RAM. :D Too bad I'd probably have to install Win98 or find some old DOS install disks to get it to work.

--Dave

I just stumbled across the video I received with the 7th Guest, I almost tossed it but in the end I just couldn't... :wink:

Steve

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

:D Now, The 7th Guest might be a wee bit more difficult to get running...
I actually bought a Windows version of that classic game recently (for cheap too). Should run perfect... still one of the best puzzle games ever IMO.

[Kati Compton]

I could never get into that one - or Myst. Don't know why. I guess I like my puzzle games to have humor in them. Not-quite-logical-logic, like the goofy LucasArts games.

I do remember all the hype about 7th guest - I worked in a software store when it came out. ;)

[Janak Parekh]

I actually bought a Windows version of that classic game recently (for cheap too). Should run perfect... still one of the best puzzle games ever IMO.
Wha? Wha? They have a Windows version? Do tell. :)

I could never get into that one - or Myst. Don't know why. I guess I like my puzzle games to have humor in them. Not-quite-logical-logic, like the goofy LucasArts games.
The 7th Guest had lots of humor, but quite of the morbid type. The problem is that the puzzles, especially near the end, were hard as hell. And the cluebook was in the drawing room, which took about 10 minutes to get to from some of the puzzles... don't forget swapping between the 2 CDs when you get to the very end.

I was amazed when I managed to solve the last puzzle (the little house with the lights, if I remember correctly).

As for the 11th Hour, I had similar problems as you, Dave. And when I started getting machines that were powerful enough, they were all running WinNT, 2k, etc. That, and I didn't have nearly as much time as I did when I was a kid playing the 7th Guest.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I actually bought a Windows version of that classic game recently (for cheap too). Should run perfect... still one of the best puzzle games ever IMO.
Wha? Wha? They have a Windows version? Do tell. :)
I remember seeing it on the bargain shelves of a Software Etc. recently. There's a review of it here (http://www.adventurecollective.com/reviews/7thguest.htm).

Technically, it's called 7th Guest for Windows95. I haven't tried it yet on XP or 2000, but it ran fine on my previous Win98 machine so I'm guessing it shouldn't be a problem.

The 7th Guest had lots of humor, but quite of the morbid type. The problem is that the puzzles, especially near the end, were hard as hell. And the cluebook was in the drawing room, which took about 10 minutes to get to from some of the puzzles... don't forget swapping between the 2 CDs when you get to the very end.

I was amazed when I managed to solve the last puzzle (the little house with the lights, if I remember correctly).
I remember being able to use logic for most of the puzzles. There were some that were just trial-and-error (that house/tower with the lights was one of them). The one puzzle that had me pulling my hair was the "Microscope/Amoeba" puzzle... I just had to let that one go...

I really loved the story in that game, especially if you read all the little "storyline" booklets that came with the original game (for some reason, the extra booklets were left out of the Win95 game packaging).

[Ed Hansberry]

Oh please - go get a 486 off of ebay and get a room! :lol:

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Oh please - go get a 486 off of ebay and get a room! :lol:
TROLL!! :o

[Janak Parekh]

The one puzzle that had me pulling my hair was the "Microscope/Amoeba" puzzle... I just had to let that one go...
Oh yeah. Forgot that one. I banished it from memory forever, because I suffered so badly. I somehow managed to beat it, I think. But it took a long, long time. I'm talking many, many hours here.

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Oh yeah. Forgot that one. I banished it from memory forever, because I suffered so badly. I somehow managed to beat it, I think. But it took a long, long time. I'm talking many, many hours here.
Oh, my hats off to you.

Seriously, only a few puzzles took me longer than an hour to solve, but I must have spent a few days with those amoebas before just giving up...