I'm sorry if this has been posted before (I tried using the search to no avail, and looked through several pages of topics), but I'm really wanting to get BOTF running on my computer that has XP, and I have not been able to. I've tried several things including various patches, moving the ustrek.exe from the tmp folder and renaming it, telling windows to run the cd as windows 2000. And none of it has worked. I've googled endlessly and just come up with headache after headache.

Basically what happens, and I've seen this mentioned at other outdated forums, is that I can get in the game all the way to the screen with the map type and settings. Except some of the names are weird like "on hold" or "rich" instead of what they should be. And as soon as I hit start, the game crashes.

If someone has a definite solution, I'd love to hear it.

Well i don't know if this works with the official CD but if you make a copy using Nero with Deamon tools the game worked fine for me without Compatability Mode. I'm on XP SP2 btw

goto the botf site itself, in the forums is a sticky topic by joker with a link to a fix.

I presume you mean the one at armadafleetcommand.com?

I tried his fix last night and it didn't work... I got the same problem that others in that thread posted. Maybe I should register there, unless anyone else here has a possible solution.

it works fine on my computer, all i needed to do is this:

1) uninstall old version
2) install from cd to different folder (just in case of registry and crap)
3) download and patch the version to 1.02. I think i got my version from armadafleetcommand.com, but i cant be sure.
4) download and patch the version to be XP compatible, the patch is on armadafleetcommand.com, but you do need to be a member.
4a) there are two different versions, if one doesnt work, try the other.

Still no dice. I tried both of them several times after clean installs. I swear I've installed/uninstalled it about 20 times now. I wish I knew of an easier solution.

Just do that and it should work i did it and it always worked it is easy to do

Does print screen work for getting screenshots of your desktop?

it really is quite simple.

install the game.
get the 1.2 patch and the hades 3d patch.
go to gamecopyworld and get the no cd crack.
apply both patches and the crack.
leave cd in the tray (or daemon tools if you're using a downloaded iso).

play.

i've been playing botf a fair bit over the last three days. it's crashed once. and i haven't set the program to run in win95 emulated mode or anything like that, and i haven't applied the winxp specific patch either. and i know that it works on a variety of setups, coz it worke on my old intel setup with an nvidia card, and it still works on my amd (64 bit no less) with an ati card...

Thom, like I said, I've already tried all the compatibility things. I tried using the wizard on the cd, using it on the shortcut, using it on the installer, using it on the exe, using it on the autoplay on the cd... and none of that worked.

TrekBoyChris, as far as I know, printscreen will work with most anything that's on your screen, with the exception of certain types of video.

Scatter, I'll have to try that hades patch. What exactly does it do? And should I use it with the official patch? And is there a link to the no cd crack?

the hades patch allows the game to use direct3d rather than opengl for the 3d models (which is always much more stable in winblows).

yes, you should use it with the official patch. but you should install the 1.2 patch first.

[Edited link out by skeeter, no links to warez or crack sites please.] - if it ain't there any more, or if it isn't in the downloads section here or at armadfleet, drop me a pm, and i'll put it on my site for you.

the reason this combination works (as far as i can tell anyways), is that a lot of the games incompatability with xp, comes from the way it tries to access the cd, and with conflicts with the video card. the 1.2 patch cuts down on the cd access, the nocd patch does that even more (almost totally), and the hades patch addresses the video conflict, because, as i said, it's direct3d.

uninstall the game, delete the directory it was in, and start from scratch to be sure. you can still use mods, but you should probably apply them fairly carefully. i know some mods don't work with the hades patch for example...

try reinstalling it again then cause my way works with every body i tell it to

ok hades 3d will in fact make the game more unstable in combat. the guy who made the patch told me this himself.

Believe me, I've reinstalled and tried it several times. It is not fixing this problem.

Scatter, has yours crashed with hades? I don't know if I want the game to be any more unstable than it is (especially with multiplayer, which is my ultimate goal). Maybe I'll try it though, since I'm desparate.

ok, i've had the same problem on my system, i decided not to install hades and the game works fine with the newest version of mulitpack mod....

also i did have to change the exe to run under win 95...
Also i had to delete the game from the windows reg. then restart, re-install the game with version 1.00 then updated to 1.02xp fix
then installed my mod... make sure you try the game un-modded after this installation.... then back up the .res file, then install the mod to make sure it isn't the mod not working on you system!

I run xp pro on my system btw

only the once, and given how prone the game was to crashing in the first place, it's difficult to blame the hades patch for it.

in fact, i'm reasonably certain it didn't crash because of the hades patch, as when the game used to crash on due to a video card conflict, my system would actually hang. when it crashed the other night, i could exit back to the desktop. that's not proof of anything though...

ic, well all i know is when i intall it, my game will no longer open... it will just give me an error...

did you install ALL of the necessary components? including the one that i've been told not to mention anymore as blanked out by skeeter?

somtimes you can just blame the darn machine. Ive been trying to get botf working on my friends machine for a while and it just hates the xp patch. Yet we have the exact same version of windows and similar software on our systems