How to run J.W's War of the Worlds Game on XP

[EvilNerfherder]

We have a lot of requests for assistance from people who buy the Jeff Wayne's War of the worlds PC game and can't run it on their XP machines.

Help is at hand!

Here are instructions on how to make the game work on Windows XP...

Right click and 'save target as' on this link...
www.richardgibbs.co.uk/waroftheworldsfixedexe.zip(Thanks to Centurius for hosting the link)
When the download is complete, unzip the file with Winzip and cut the 'WoWexe' that is in the file and paste it in the game folder when you have installed it. It will ask if you want to replace the old file.. answer 'yes'.

Go into the JWWOTW folder in 'Program files' and right click on both the WOW and WOW.exe icons, select the 'compatibility' tabs, check the 'run with' boxes and select 'Windows 98' on the drop down tabs. Click 'Apply' and 'ok'.

You should now be set.
You *may* find that some of the music won't work and the cut scenes may be distorted but at least the game itself should now run. You may need to go into the JWWOTW folder and click on the WOW.exe to run the game first time. In my case, once I'd done this, in subsequent sessions the game loaded fine from the normal game menu
Also this game, being old and not configured for XP, may try to convince your PC it doesn't have memory to run it.
Best way to combat this is to..
1) Always run the game from a new boot.
2) Make sure all your caches are clear.
3) Make sure there are NO other programs running before playing.
It should work ok if you follow the above steps.

[marciano]

THANKS, THANKS THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[Thunder Child]

The music does indeed not work. Little disappointment really, the music is very spooky...

Johan

[EvilNerfherder]

Listening to a copy of 'Ulladubulla' whilst playing the game might help a little, perhaps?

[Thunder Child]

Don't have that one...

[Happy Chappy]

Ok, so I can't even install the bloody thing, let alone run it with any patch!

I keep getting the following error:

[krys666]

I get that when running most programs and games!

Please someone, help! I can't even play some games that are desinged to run on XP!!!

What does this error mean? How do we fix it?

Arghghghgghgh! I just died because I'm so mad!!!

[EvilNerfherder]

Someone who actually runs XP will probably be able to help better (I don't). Isn't there a way you can switch to '98' mode on XP? Everybody else I know who has XP hasn't had any problems with the game.. especially when the patch is installed.

[Anim8tr]

nerfherder said:

Isn't there a way you can switch to '98' mode on XP?

Your right EvilNerfherder. Right click on your program icon. Select "properties"at bottom, then click on "Compatibility" tab. It should be pretty self explanatory from there.

However if it's a DOS based game, then trying to run it on anything higher then Win 95 might be hairy. Hope this helps.

[Happy Chappy]

anim8tr, do you mean the icon for the .exe file? I can't get that as I cannot even install the damn thing! GRRRR. It's doing my nut in as I used to have it installed on this machine until I had a new hard drive fitted.

[ArmoredTrackLayer]

Umm..run in windows 98 compatability mode....

Never had any problems with mine after I did that.

[Anim8tr]

Happy Chappy, Sorry to take so long in responding. Been doing a little online homework. While there are too many variables involved to solve your problem with a simple answer, (i.e. hardware, OS, etc.) I thought this may be of some help.

Linky:
www.ntcompatible.com/thread25988-1.html
Look about 11 posts down. However you might want to read the entire page.
If your on dial-up this page may need a bit of time to load.
Hope this helps, and nice to make your acquaintance!

Not suprisingly, this seems similar to an earlier post by that of EvilReindeerherder.
Found here:
robk.proboards13.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=display&thread=1132180415

[EvilNerfherder]

Actually, I didn't get the patch from there . It is a different one that an ex-member of this board sent me a long time ago and it is an improved version of the one on that link you gave. Figuring out the rest was down to trial and error when helping a mate to get the game to run on his XP system.
I've posted these instructions many times on different boards over the past couple of years, this thread was a repost after requests for help by several members.

[Anim8tr]

Thanks for the info, EvilReindeerherder. I stand corrected.

[Happy Chappy]

YAY!!!! I got it sorted, courtesy of my pals over at football365's forum...

This link tells you what to do...

support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324767&Product=winxp

You're welcome!

[EvilNerfherder]

I'd just like to add that my tips were not at fault. It was Happy Chappy's stupid computer. Ahem!

[Happy Chappy]

Cheeky bugger, Nerfy! GRRR

[weegerri]

nerfherder said:

You should now be set.
You *may* find that some of the music won't work and the cut scenes may be distorted but at least the game itself should now run.

I have manage to fix the cut scene distortion problem... the colours were badly scrambled on the cut scenes when I used the patch but I found a registry tweak to fix this.

If anyone else has this colour distortion problem please ask and I will provide instructions on how to fix it.

I am still working on the CD music problem and will let you know if I manage to fix it.

[EvilNerfherder]

Thanks Weegerri. I have PM'd you.