Older GameHouse games install, won't launch.

[bizzybody]

A client wants several older games from GameHouse on her new Win7 64 bit Home Premium box. The games install with no complaints but they will not launch. Nothing at all happens. I've tried every option under compatibility, including running with administrator rights.

What has to happen the first time is a dialog box opens to enter the registered user name and code. Apparently that wants to do something Win 7 won't allow to happen, and it's not giving out any clues about what the problem is.

A couple of the games are Super Collapse II and Super MahJong Solitaire.

Fortunately, I've had no problem with equally old games from PopCap on Win7. Put about a dozen of those on, no difference from installing on anything back to Win98. Hooray for forward compatibility.

[Mr Snrub]

Have you tried disabling Data Execution Prevention for those .exe files?

Right-click Computer > Properties

Advanced system settings > Settings button in "Performance" section

Data Execution Prevention tab

If you have "Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select" (recommended) then click the Add button and browse to the program's executable to add it to the list of exceptions.

If that doesn't help, I would contact the vendor to ask them if there is any way to get their program to work on Win7 x64.

[Tripredacus]

If these games are the DOS versions (since you mentioned W98) you are going to have problems. For example, the DOS version of Warcraft II (Tides of Darkness) will not execute under Windows 7. However they made a different release (Warcraft II: Battle.Net Edition) which WILL work in Windows 7. The difference is that the BNet Edition was a "Windows 95" game rather than ToD which was for DOS. You can try using an emulator to run them if they are DOS Games. For example I used DOSBox to run WC2:ToD, which worked (even the sound) but had to configure it to detect the CD Drive properly.

Some problems you may encounter running DOS programs in Windows (even with the command prompt) is it can't find the sound card, video plays in a resolution/refresh rate you can't see, or the program pins the CPU at 100%.

Ah, Mr Snrub, I did not know about turning off DEP for making games work, I'll have to remember that one.

[bizzybody]

No, they're not DOS games.

It would be nice is Win 7 would pop up something that says why it won't allow those games to run, rather than doing nothing at all. With all the other changes made to make Win 7 newbie friendly (and all the things removed to make it annoying to people with 27+ years computer experience) this total nothing quietness doesn't fit that theme.

[Tripredacus]

You can try running ProcMon on the game's process and see why it exits. That would be my next step. It is possible that an assembly is missing that it requires, like from an older VC Redist or some older programs needed the Common Controls patch.

[cluberti]

If a game (or any program for that matter) runs and terminates gracefully (aka not crashing), Windows 7 isn't going to tell you anything because ExitProcess was called successfully. As Trip said, at this point procmon is probably your best option, short of running the app under a debugger.