Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Known Compatibility Issues

Microsoft has made quite a few changes with their new operating system, Windows Vista.  Some of these changes mean that programs, software and games that used to work under Windows XP and Windows 2000 will not run under Windows Vista because Microsoft no longer supports certain functions (DirectSound, Winhelp32 etc).  Microsoft also no longer supports their older operating systems – Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows NT or Windows 95 or older.

Windows Help Issue

Older help (winhlp32 – the file format *.hlp) files are not supported without downloading the Microsoft patch found here -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6EBCFAD9-D3F5-4365-8070-334CD175D4BB&displaylang=en

The second thing Microsoft has done is to introduce a security feature called User Access Control or UAC for short.  This is used to prevent malicious software like spyware, viruses and the like, from installing themselves onto the PC without the users knowledge.  But, it can also cause problems with any legitimate software or games written before mid to late 2006.  So even with an Administrator account (with UAC on), Vista is restricting you from installing or running old software and games that were not designed for it.  But it is also protecting itself and you from the possibility of installing or running malicious software.

Simply put, things that used to work on your old Windows, may not work on Vista! 

There are few problems that have really easy fixes.  You may need to do one or more of the following fixes to get the affected software or games to work on Vista:

DirectSound Error If you get a ‘DirectSound’ error message or if the screen goes black for a second, then nothing else happens.  Check to see if you have speakers/headphones plugged in (they don’t have to be on, Vista just needs to know something is plugged in).  If your volume control (the little speaker next to your clock) has a little red cross and this information message appears when you hover over it, Vista thinks you have no speakers, causing some software/games to fail.

Game Doesn't Run If you have installed software or a game that doesn’t run, this could work.  If it is a link on the desktop, right click on the link and select ‘Run as administrator’.  Then click 'Allow' when prompted for the User Account Control.

Desktop Shortcuts / Game Browser / Game Butler not working
A few of the eGames titles have desktop shortcuts that link to an empty folder.  This can be deleted.  Also, eGames usually use either their Game Browser or Game Butler to allow quick and easy access to any eGames titles you have installed. This works very well for other versions of Windows, but it doesn’t work very well with Windows Vista.

Follow the steps below to create a shortcut on your desktop;

If, when you installed the software or game, you didn’t change any of the settings and just installed in the default folder, your eGames titles could be in:

C:\Program Files\eGames\Title of the game\Game\gamename.exe

So for example if you installed eGames Mahjongg Master Egyptian Edition you will go to;

C:\Program Files\eGames\Mahjongg Master Egyptian Edition\Game\MJMEgypt.exe

Right-click with mouse   >   Send To   >   Click Desktop (create shortcut)