American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Having a problem with BG Gettysburg in Vista. It will not open the BTE file sent to me. Anyone out there able to help? I set the compatability to XP but that did not help. It opens fine on my Laptop with XP so it is not he file itself. I posted a reply in the HPS VISTA section, but that was probably the wrong place.



Mike Burdulis

Ernie, has HPS undertaken to fix Vista issues for the Talonsoft games too? I can understand John Tiller being interested in the folks who've bought the Battleground games but it's very generous of HPS if they have.



<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ernie Sands</i>
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<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Gen. Den McBride
Congaree Swamp Rifles
"Fightin' for The Cause since '97"
III Corps, ANV
C.S.A.
swampfox_csa(at)yahoo.ca

I would doubt that there would be any retrofitting of the BG series.

I *think* MATRIX(?) was revising/reviving the BG series and selling the games, again. I have no idea where that is now, in relation to VISTA.



<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

I also had problems. I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling the game. When reinstalling I would check the game after the initial install and it worked fine. Then, I would apply the 16-bit patch (i.e. BGN 1.12, etc.) and it was fine. Then I applied the 32-bit patch and thats when I encountered the error with scenario problems. The combatibility modes don't help, either. I think it would still be playable in 16-bit (but that is taking a step backwards, isn't it?).

Yes, Matrix is allegedly re-releasing the game sometime this century but who knows when or if that will occur. It has been a year and a half since they acquired the rights.

Major General Dale Lastowicka
1st "Adirondack" Division
XXV Corps
Army of the James

I don't know what the specific problem in this case may be. Let's remember, however, that the Battleground games were developed to run on Windows 95, a vastly different operating system than Vista. It is inevitable that the base Windows O/S will eventually no longer support this old software.

So, what then is a gamer to do if one wishes to continue playing these games? HPS will likely produce a patch to allow their products to run under Vista, but I doubt you will ever see the same for Battleground. It might require a vast rewrite of the Battleground engine. Will Matrix Games do this? Who knows? If so, it probably won't be a free download.

My suggestion is this: If you have purchased Vista, and it is your only machine, then look for a 2nd used model which can run XP. Buy a good KVM switch box, network your 2 machines together, and use the 2nd machine to play all the games you love. If you are currently running only XP, then retire this machine at your leisure when you decide to go with Vista (at least SP1 or SP2). Same quality KVM switch and you are in business. This is the only way I can think of which will allow you to continue playing the Civil War games indefinitely.

Of course, this solves your problem if you want to play solitaire. For PBEM you will need to find someone equally equipped. This might be a listing that the ACWGC will eventually need to produce: Who can still play games no longer supported by the current Windows O/S?

BG Robert Frost
Army of Cumberland

For games that don't work in Vista, an interesting alternative would be to use MS Virtual Machine 2007: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... m#filelist

It looks like a more convenient alternative to dual boot for games, but it looks limited on which versions of Vista and XP it supports. I've got Vista Business and XP Pro, and I plan to test it when I get some time. I'll report here when I do (if no one else beats me to it!).

Lt. General Dirk Gross
XIV Corps/AoC

My solution for now is dual boot. Hard drives are sufficiently cheap and large to handle this option now. If you are already running an XP system and have the space, a nice free utility, GPart, handles changing the partition space and creating a new primary partition for Vista very well.

For those who don't know the trick, you can make Vista Update version do a clean install in the new partition. Just make the first install with your computer disconnected from the internet. Don't ask for updates and don't enter the product code. It will give you the choice of a clean install (you won't be able to select upgrade). Let it install and finish then from Vista execute the Install disk's setup again. This time put in your product code and select upgrade. Don't select updates and leave disconnected from the internet. It will install over the trial copy. After everything is running reconnect the internet and update the OS online.

I haven't done much testing of running HPS games from Vista but I was able to just go over to my XP folders with HPS Gettysburg in it and run the games from Vista. Haven't tried this trick with TS games yet.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

Came across this method to install Vista clean instead of the double install trick:

http://www.techwrighter.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=27

Lt. General Dirk Gross
XIV Corps/AoC