Co8 5.7.1 on Windows 7 64 bit?

Has anyone had success running 5.7.1 on Windows 7 64 bit? I have Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) and an NVIDIA GTX 295 graphics card. I'm running a screen res of 1680x1050.

1. I install ToEE from my purchased CD. Version 1.000.000 according to Control Panel. I alter all .exes so that they are run with admin privileges and Win XP SP2 compatibility. The install is successful. I apply Atari ToEE patch 1 and then patch 2 (also changing their properties as above). Both are successful. I reboot my system.

2. I verify the vanilla install by launching ToEE and starting a new game with some pregen characters. The game crashes to desktop once on the 'initializing sector data' load bar, telling me 'ToEE.exe has stopped working'; I change the now-populated ToEE.cfg to handle a screen width of 1680 and a screen height of 1050, restart it and it runs fine after that. I get through the vignettes (including a combat) and reach Homlett. I exit the game.

3. I extract Co8 5.7.1 BETA into my Program Files (x86)\Atari\Temple of Elemental Evil root directory. I change the permissions and compatibilities of all new .exes.

4. I run TFE-X.exe for the first time. It generates music and video files, and successfully installs TFE-X. I see dialog boxes telling me all these installed successfully. In TFE-X, I activate the 5.7.1 mod. After a period of a couple minutes I receive a message box telling me that the operation was successful and I now see that the mod is 'Activated' in the grid. I click on the 'Play' button inside TFE-X. ToEE loads up.

5. on the ToEE load screen I now have a blue dialog bar telling me that I am running Co8 5.7.1. I start a new game, and again choose some pregen characters. I appear in the Shopmap.

6. I immediately go the grey 'Begin Game' square at the bottom of the screen that should put me into the appropriate vignette for my party's alignment, instead I CTD with a very generic 'ToEE.exe has stopped working'.

Note, I am not using any sort of NoCD crack because the vanilla install of ToEE.exe works fine for me.

Also, I've tried just activating the regular stock Temple of Elemental Evil module in TFE-X and using that without the mod. It successfully activates in TFE-X (I get the appropriate dialog box and can see its 'activated' status in the grid). When I start a new game, choose a character and hit the 'Begin Adventuring' button, I again CTD with a 'ToEE.exe has stopped working.'

Thus I am led to believe that whatever TFE-X is doing to ToEE.exe is causing it to crash when it is called in game (after the launch screen loads) for the first time.

I'd dearly love to get the mod working....does anyone have thoughts or similar experiences to share? Using the 'search' for Windows 7 related threads was not very successful for me....

Finally, I've tried playing the game with virus protection (I use McAfee) turned off....same problem.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate x64 here with no problems. That's on a Phenom x4 955 with ATI HD4770 (9.12 hotfix drivers) with ATI Tray Tools.

Making use of the nocd crack with Comodo Firewall and ESET NOD32 v4.

I run the game with NO compatibility settings enabled and I have turned OFF User Account Control (UAC) which can be done through the "User Accounts" section in the Control Panel.

I'm finding that all of these old games - Fallout/Arcanum/VtMB/JA2 Gold - seem to work fine by default without compatibility settings.

 

Question... I am playing on both Vista 32 bit and Windows 7 32 bit. In both I get a tremednous freeze up between the time I press the "Esc" key and the time the Save/Load menu shows up.

Is this unique to these OSs or is it a common problem? And is there anything to do about it?

Tnx,
Michi

 

Thanks all for the quick and extremely helpful replies. My problem is (so far) solved. It was the Bink videos (post TFE-X install) that were crashing ToEE.exe. I changed the vignette file names and the game plays fine. Strangely it doesnt seem to have a problem with the Hommlet Bink video (the one that plays the first time you come over the hill into Homlett), just the alignment starter vignette ones.

I could probably download the Bink tools, get the codec and see the vignettes, but its not really that critical for me as I've seen them all years ago when the game first came out and I played it for like a bajillion hours with all the alignments.

Anyway, thanx again for the help and advice. Oh, and for the above poster, I've always noticed a noticeable lag (5-10 sec) between pressing the 'esc' key and seeing the menu; irritating but I've always just lived with it. Especially because, at least originally, quicksaves were kind of risky so you had to save/load the slow manual way.

Unless quicksaves have become more stable (and therefore safer to use) after the official patches or Co8 mods? Wow that would be nice...

 

I have the same OS and am trying to install the game but it crashes toward the end of installation. Will let you know if I find out how to fix it.

[edit]
Worked on the second attempt. Weird.