Help avoiding quirky buggy start up in Vista

Hi,
I'm using a vintage 2007 Windows Vista laptop to run ToEE on and it has problems starting up. I have the German version of ToEE with Atari USA ANY patch 2 installed. (When I install patch 3 it won't start at all.) The only way I can get the game to start is to do it in Windows XP SP 2 compatibility mode with 640x480 resolution and with administrator rights. Even then, it only starts up about once every 4th attempt or so. I've even shut off my wireless and quit Skype, suspecting interference there. Any ideas about what could be wrong or how I could make it just start up without all this hassle each time?
I would appreciate any help you can give me.

 

I highly recommend you download the Co8 modpak so you can take advantage of the many bug and issue fixes included in it. The version without an NC on the end will give you the vanilla experience without the bugs.

And as always, when running almost any game on Vista, right click on the desktop icon go to properties and put a check in the "run as admin" then apply.

 

Thanks for the tip Sirchet,
I DO want to download the Co8 fixes eventually, but I'm not sure whether I'll lose my vanilla save games if I upgrade to Co8, so I thought I'd try to finish the game as it is for now. Once I'm done I want to play it again with all the Co8 fixes and improvements you guys have made that I've been reading about (and with a different party). Please let me know if that vanilla Co8 upgrade will still let me reload my vanilla/patch 2 saves.
Thanks.

 

Yes, the saves you have from the vanilla game WILL NOT work with the Co8 modpack.

You could look at this as an excellent excuse to start over again.

I love rolling up new characters myself. :cool2:

 

Move the game out of "Programs" and into "games". Mine is:computer/partition1(C)/Games/atari/toee. If you do that, you don't have the issues for running as admin or the problems upgrading.