Hi,
I have a Win XP Home. Master of Orion used to work fine. (I had to reformat the hard drive several weeks ago). It still works fine, except whenever I try to exit, the computer locks up and I have to turn it off. I enabled alt-esc, win logon key, control-esc keys through properties (all theses keys were unchecked before the reformat). Sometimes I can use the win logon key to get back to windows.
I modified the autoexec.nt and config.nt and moved them to the game directory and changed the location in properties. I also added c:\ at the end of autoexec.nt. No luck
Any ideas?
Thanx
Master of Orion 1: Exit locks computer up
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Lance
Getting Master of Orion 1 to work in XP
Like many of you, I've been trying to find a way to get this game to function in an XP environment.
Well, about a month ago, I finally did it.
Let me write down the secret of my success in the hope one or more of you will be able to get it working as well.
First, I'm operating a Dell Inspiron 600M with 1 gig of ram, and an Intel Pentium M processor running at 2 gigahertz. My video card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. My operating system is Windows XP Professional. The whole computer is less than 2 months old.
You should also know that I am using a CD that I pruchased some 6 years ago from some store over the internet. I have had nothing but problems trying to utilize the various downloads that are available. They all ask me to indicate where the program is resident, and where it is being installed to. With both of those being the C drive, because it is a download, the program set-up feature yacks up a hairball at the suggestion the program could be on the same drive.
My advice is to either acquire a CD, acquire the 3.5" floppies, or perhaps burn a copy to CD then try to load the game from there.
The first thing I did was download dosbox 0.63. I don't know if this was the latest and greatest, but it works
Then I downloaded a program entitled D-Fend v2 which acts as a human interface for dosbox.
From there I followed the add a program wizard which walks you through downloading the program and setting the basic parameters for getting it to run.
Once all that was done, there was more.
D-Fend will set up an Orion icon on its interface for you. Clicking it just opens dosbox. If you are using the cdrom, you still have to mount the cdrom player to get it function.
Typing "intro cdrom" (without the parenthesis) will bring up the method to mount the drive, which is to type mount d D:\ -t cdrom, and then pressing enter.
Once mounted, it'll tell you its mounted, and you'll have a Z prompt.
You need to type in C: enter to get to the C prompt, just like in dos.
Typing ORION should, if all else is equal, bring up orion.
But, we're still not done yet.
You'll get the opening screen, you'll click on that to bypass the movie (at least, I always do) and suddenly you'll find the mouse doesn't work.
The only reason I solved this last mystery was because the battery on my laptop was running low. It caused Orion to minimize to give me the warning. After plugging it in, I maximized Orion and discovered the mouse worked fine!
Continued experimentation has shown that the solution works great and keeps on working. In order to minimize Orion, press control alt delete to bring up the task manager. A small warning, when I'm operating on battery power, this can take up to two minutes to work. So, just do it once and wait. Eventually, Orion will minimize and the task manager box will come up. Then click on the dosbox icon in the minimized programs tray and the program should come right up with a functional mouse.
At first the game played real slow. I found there were two reasons. First, I was operating on battery for a lot of it. Plugging the laptop into the wall apparently brings things back to life in a laptop which measurably sped up the game. Second, I adjusted the game speed, which I believe D-Fend tells you how to do (function F12 I believe).
I've been playing the game successfully for about two weeks (jsut got done with three hours of it). I have full sound, video, no hiccuping, and no audio or visual issues whatsoever. I can save games to.
I don't check this board, or any of the others very often. So, if you follow my advice and it doesn't work, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I'm no expert, but I'll be happy to see if my D-Fend interface can tell me the solution to whatever is plaguing your attempt to get the game running.
Well, about a month ago, I finally did it.
Let me write down the secret of my success in the hope one or more of you will be able to get it working as well.
First, I'm operating a Dell Inspiron 600M with 1 gig of ram, and an Intel Pentium M processor running at 2 gigahertz. My video card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. My operating system is Windows XP Professional. The whole computer is less than 2 months old.
You should also know that I am using a CD that I pruchased some 6 years ago from some store over the internet. I have had nothing but problems trying to utilize the various downloads that are available. They all ask me to indicate where the program is resident, and where it is being installed to. With both of those being the C drive, because it is a download, the program set-up feature yacks up a hairball at the suggestion the program could be on the same drive.
My advice is to either acquire a CD, acquire the 3.5" floppies, or perhaps burn a copy to CD then try to load the game from there.
The first thing I did was download dosbox 0.63. I don't know if this was the latest and greatest, but it works
Then I downloaded a program entitled D-Fend v2 which acts as a human interface for dosbox.
From there I followed the add a program wizard which walks you through downloading the program and setting the basic parameters for getting it to run.
Once all that was done, there was more.
D-Fend will set up an Orion icon on its interface for you. Clicking it just opens dosbox. If you are using the cdrom, you still have to mount the cdrom player to get it function.
Typing "intro cdrom" (without the parenthesis) will bring up the method to mount the drive, which is to type mount d D:\ -t cdrom, and then pressing enter.
Once mounted, it'll tell you its mounted, and you'll have a Z prompt.
You need to type in C: enter to get to the C prompt, just like in dos.
Typing ORION should, if all else is equal, bring up orion.
But, we're still not done yet.
You'll get the opening screen, you'll click on that to bypass the movie (at least, I always do) and suddenly you'll find the mouse doesn't work.
The only reason I solved this last mystery was because the battery on my laptop was running low. It caused Orion to minimize to give me the warning. After plugging it in, I maximized Orion and discovered the mouse worked fine!
Continued experimentation has shown that the solution works great and keeps on working. In order to minimize Orion, press control alt delete to bring up the task manager. A small warning, when I'm operating on battery power, this can take up to two minutes to work. So, just do it once and wait. Eventually, Orion will minimize and the task manager box will come up. Then click on the dosbox icon in the minimized programs tray and the program should come right up with a functional mouse.
At first the game played real slow. I found there were two reasons. First, I was operating on battery for a lot of it. Plugging the laptop into the wall apparently brings things back to life in a laptop which measurably sped up the game. Second, I adjusted the game speed, which I believe D-Fend tells you how to do (function F12 I believe).
I've been playing the game successfully for about two weeks (jsut got done with three hours of it). I have full sound, video, no hiccuping, and no audio or visual issues whatsoever. I can save games to.
I don't check this board, or any of the others very often. So, if you follow my advice and it doesn't work, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I'm no expert, but I'll be happy to see if my D-Fend interface can tell me the solution to whatever is plaguing your attempt to get the game running.