Get The First Decade to work on Windows 10.

@hanshot1st1138

Well, allrighty then. Let's start with the important stuff: RA2/YR is pretty easy to fix. There's a little patch called DDWrapper that'll have it fixed for you right away. More on that later.

For the rest... there's a problem with the DRM system used in TFD. Namely, Microsoft decommissioned it, and simply didn't include it in Windows 10, by design, meaning none of the games that use that DRM system (SafeDisc/SecuRom) can still identify discs as being their correct legal game disk. Luckily, one of the unofficial patches you most likely already encountered, namely, the TFD 1.03 revision 4 patch from the CNCNZ site, makes all games No-DVD, thereby solving the DRM problem.

Anyway... there's been another thread asking about TFD just about a week ago, so I suggest you check out my detailed answer there, including all patch links:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/C-C-The-Ultimate-Collection/I-have-C-amp-C-First-Decade/td-p/5467561

The error message you get for the Generals games may very well be the DRM problem. As I said, the v1.03 community patch should get rid of that. If you got any more problems, check out the sticky Common Issues and Solutions thread (it has some more stuff about Generals that may help, concerning the creation of missing settings files). If you still got problems after going through the solutions there... well, feel free to ask me here 🙂 (if you mention people with "@" they get an email notification, btw. Always handy if you want replies.)

As for your nickname, really, maybe combining a Star Wars meme with THX-1138 isn't quite as clever or unique as you thought? This is the internet, man. You don't own a copyright on that name :-\

@Nyerguds

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@Nyerguds wrote:

@hanshot1st1138

Well, allrighty then. Let's start with the important stuff: RA2/YR is pretty easy to fix. There's a little patch called DDWrapper that'll have it fixed for you right away. More on that later.

For the rest... there's a problem with the DRM system used in TFD. Namely, Microsoft decommissioned it, and simply didn't include it in Windows 10, by design, meaning none of the games that use that DRM system (SafeDisc/SecuRom) can still identify discs as being their correct legal game disk. Luckily, one of the unofficial patches you most likely already encountered, namely, the TFD 1.03 revision 4 patch from the CNCNZ site, makes all games No-DVD, thereby solving the DRM problem.

Anyway... there's been another thread asking about TFD just about a week ago, so I suggest you check out my detailed answer there, including all patch links:

http://answers.ea.com/t5/C-C-The-Ultimate-Collection/I-have-C-amp-C-First-Decade/td-p/5467561

The error message you get for the Generals games may very well be the DRM problem. As I said, the v1.03 community patch should get rid of that. If you got any more problems, check out the sticky Common Issues and Solutions thread (it has some more stuff about Generals that may help, concerning the creation of missing settings files). If you still got problems after going through the solutions there... well, feel free to ask me here 🙂 (if you mention people with "@" they get an email notification, btw. Always handy if you want replies.)

As for your nickname, really, maybe combining a Star Wars meme with THX-1138 isn't quite as clever or unique as you thought? This is the internet, man. You don't own a copyright on that name :-\

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I have the 1.03 patch.

I'm looking through that link you sent me, Notepad won't let me save ForceDrawEmulation. Managed to get those other two programs into the program file as per your institution. Any advice? Notepad says I need permission, and I don't think that's a program that can be run as administrator.

This all does sound like the sort of ingenious moronicism that Microsoft would do. So much for installing old copies of Dune or Doom 😕.

As far as my name, I have it on at least a half- dozen forums. I'd just add an underscore, but I'm one character shy. First world problems.

@hanshot1st1138 Word of advice... do not install these older C&C games under Program Files. If you do, absolutely everything that wants/needs to manipulate files in these folders will need admin rights to work right, including the games themselves. So, yeah. Without elevation, the games will not get write access inside their own game folders. Given the fact the pre-Generals C&C games all keep their game settings in there, putting them in Program Files is a really bad idea.

It is possible to start Notepad with admin rights, if you just find it in your Start menu, right click it there and select "Run as Administrator". Do note, drag&drop doesn't work between programs with different rights, so you'd still have to either open the file through File-> Open, or also run an Explorer window with administrator rights to drag from.

So, yeah. Just install it somewhere else. Make a C:\Games folder or something.

@hanshot1st1138

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@hanshot1st1138 wrote:

So much for installing old copies of Dune or Doom 😕. 

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I wouldn't be so sure about that. if, with "Dune", you mean Dune II, you're talking about two pure DOS games, meaning all you really need is the DOSBox emulator. However, for Dune II and Doom specifically, there are more interesting ways: for both of these games the program source code is available (Doom's source code was officially released, and Dune II was fully reverse-engineered), meaning there are most likely projects that rebuilt them to work natively on modern operating systems.

If you're interested in Dune II, Dune Dynasty is such a project, and it's really worth checking out. As I mentioned, the game's original source code has been completely reverse-engineered, and someone used that as base to implement some really nifty upgrades to the game's control and user interface (including hi-res with on-the-fly zooming), while (unlike game recreations not based on the original source code) the actual gameplay is still 100% like the original..

Official page:
http://dunedynasty.sourceforge.net/
My own installation/tweaking guide:
https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/24316-dune-dynasty/?page=12#comment-391240

Info on how to best configure your game resolution can be found here:

https://forums.cncnet.org/index.php?topic=6176.msg45369#msg45369

I'm fairly sure similar projects exist for Doom, given that its source code is also freely available.

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If you mean Dune 2000, though... check out Gruntmod's pack:

https://gruntmods.com/dune_2000_gruntmods_edition/

On the note of Dune 2000... all C&C games, and Dune 2000, can still be played online; the older ones on CnCNet, the newer ones (Generals and later) on C&C:Online.

@Nyerguds

@Nyerguds wrote:

Word of advice... do not install these older C&C games under Program Files. If you do, absolutely everything that wants/needs to manipulate files in these folders will need admin rights to work right, including the games themselves. So, yeah. Without elevation, the games will not get write access inside their own game folders. Given the fact the pre-Generals C&C games all keep their game settings in there, putting them in Program Files is a really bad idea.

It is possible to start Notepad with admin rights, if you just find it in your Start menu, right click it there and select "Run as Administrator". Do note, drag&drop doesn't work between programs with different rights, so you'd still have to either open the file through File-> Open, or also run an Explorer window with administrator rights to drag from.

So, yeah. Just install it somewhere else. Make a C:\Games folder or something.

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I did this and installed them in another folder. Do I still need to install as an administrator? Because I did what your guide said, installed those files, moved them to the RA2 folder, changed "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" to 1, and then clicked yuri.exe, and I after getting a message about compatibility mode, I thought it was good to go, but alas, no.

EDIT: AHA! Managed to get it to work when I ran it as administrator. Man, I don't know what you did or how you knew all that, but I owe you one! I should bookmark your page! Maybe the other patches will work on the other games! Thanks a lot!

EDIT: There are so many patches for the other games. Night reading😉.

As for Dune II/2000 (Were both DOS based and therefore would they work with the emulator?), why isn't it in Origin? That's really disappointing! I'll see if I can hunt down the disc for it or Doom on eBay and see if that DOS emulator works, I guess. Really disappointed EA don't have it available. I guess it's too small a cult following to have enough financial cache.

PS Can  Mod fix the embarrassing spelling error in the title?!

I'm supposed to have a second post here, why didn't it go up?

@hanshot1st1138

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

As for Dune II/2000 (Were both DOS based and therefore would they work with the emulator?), why isn't it in Origin? That's really disappointing! I'll see if I can hunt down the disc for it or Doom on eBay and see if that DOS emulator works, I guess. Really disappointed EA don't have it available. I guess it's too small a cult following to have enough financial cache.

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No, Dune 2000 is a Windows remake of Dune II done by Westwood itself (whereas DOS C&C was simply ported to Win95 as C&C95 with pretty much the same graphics and gameplay, Dune 2000 is a more extensive remake, not just a windows port). As for Dune II, though, my installation guide for Dune Dynasty on the fed2k forum contains a sneaky link to the game files 😉

As for why they aren't on Origin... well, I don't know the internals exactly, but they're licensed games from a movie, and that always complicates matters a whole lot.

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

PS Can  Mod fix the embarrassing spelling error in the title?

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You can just edit the first post and click on the title in the editing window, and you can change it. Sadly, last time I did such an edit I noticed it just changed the title of the post in this topic, but didn't affect the topic title as shown on the forum index :-\

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@Nyerguds wrote:

@hanshot1st1138

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

As for Dune II/2000 (Were both DOS based and therefore would they work with the emulator?), why isn't it in Origin? That's really disappointing! I'll see if I can hunt down the disc for it or Doom on eBay and see if that DOS emulator works, I guess. Really disappointed EA don't have it available. I guess it's too small a cult following to have enough financial cache.

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No, Dune 2000 is a Windows remake of Dune II done by Westwood itself (whereas DOS C&C was simply ported to Win95 as C&C95 with pretty much the same graphics and gameplay, Dune 2000 is a more extensive remake, not just a windows port). As for Dune II, though, my installation guide for Dune Dynasty on the fed2k forum contains a sneaky link to the game files 😉

As for why they aren't on Origin... well, I don't know the internals exactly, but they're licensed games from a movie, and that always complicates matters a whole lot.

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

PS Can  Mod fix the embarrassing spelling error in the title?

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You can just edit the first post and click on the title in the editing window, and you can change it. Sadly, last time I did such an edit I noticed it just changed the title of the post in this topic, but didn't affect the topic title as shown on the forum index :-\

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So if I get the old Dune II and Dune 2000 discs on eBay, can the patches you're linking me to make them work on my Windows 10 PC 😉? Dune II would simply require a DOS emulator, what would Dune 2000 require? I assume they aren't on Origin due to a combination of legal issues and simple disinterest on the part of EA.

@hanshot1st1138

Honestly, buying the discs might get you karma points, but more often than not, especially on Win95 games, it won't get you a running game. C&C95, for example, is a 32-bit game (which runs fine on 64-bit machines) with a 16-bit CD installer (which doesn't even start on a 64-bit machine), so without some really specific tools to extract the installer archives, you won't even get to the game files..

I don't know the specifics for Dune 2000; it's been ages since I installed it, but as far as I know, the game's what they call "true abandonware"; no longer supported, sold or cared about by the company owning the copyright. So, yeah... I linked you to Gruntmod's installer. Just use that. The fact they didn't bother with a patch version might be an indication that the CD installer might not work anymore either.

As for Dune II... the game isn't easy to find at all. I got lucky and got a CD copy of the EU version, but the big box I got my hands on a while ago contained floppies (this is a game from 1993 after all), and hardly any PC nowadays even still has a drive for those. Also, if you go with the Dynasty way (really worth it, trust me) you do specifically need the EU version. As I said in the thread over ad fed2k, the pack's somewhere in the open directory I occasionally dare call a website. Probably under "Dune" 😛

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@Nyerguds wrote:

@hanshot1st1138

Honestly, buying the discs might get you karma points, but more often than not, especially on Win95 games, it won't get you a running game. C&C95, for example, is a 32-bit game (which runs fine on 64-bit machines) with a 16-bit CD installer (which doesn't even start on a 64-bit machine), so without some really specific tools to extract the installer archives, you won't even get to the game files..

I don't know the specifics for Dune 2000; it's been ages since I installed it, but as far as I know, the game's what they call "true abandonware"; no longer supported, sold or cared about by the company owning the copyright. So, yeah... I linked you to Gruntmod's installer. Just use that. The fact they didn't bother with a patch version might be an indication that the CD installer might not work anymore either.

As for Dune II... the game isn't easy to find at all. I got lucky and got a CD copy of the EU version, but the big box I got my hands on a while ago contained floppies (this is a game from 1993 after all), and hardly any PC nowadays even still has a drive for those. Also, if you go with the Dynasty way (really worth it, trust me) you so specifically need the EU version. As I said in the thread over ad fed2k, the pack's somewhere in the open directory I occasionally dare call a website. Probably under "Dune" 😛

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Catholic upbriging. Guilty conscience 😉. I guess that clearly the distributors are aware of the fan-communities and stuff though, with how long they've been going on. So I'm better off just downloading it from one of your links? I hope they're easy to use 😉.

So if I want to play C&C online, I assume the First Decade servers are long dead. Are there various fan options?

@hanshot1st1138

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

Catholic upbriging. Guilty conscience 😉. I guess that clearly the distributors are aware of the fan-communities and stuff though, with how long they've been going on.

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Honestly, offering working downloads for these games has become more akin to archaeology than to piracy. It's a work of mercy, really, saving these games from Death by Obscurity.

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

So I'm better off just downloading it from one of your links? I hope they're easy to use 😉.

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Well, Dune Dynasty is a little bit of work to set up, but I linked to a complete guide for that (This is the original game files pack you need to get it running, btw). As for Gruntmod's Dune 2000 installer, haven't tried it, but I assume it's just simply Install & Play.

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hanshot1st1138 wrote:

So if I want to play C&C online, I assume the First Decade servers are long dead. Are there various fan options?

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You may want to reread my posts... I already linked to that stuff:

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@Nyerguds wrote:

On the note of Dune 2000... all C&C games, and Dune 2000, can still be played online; the older ones on CnCNet, the newer ones (Generals and later) on C&C:Online

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So, yeah, multiplayer is all taken care of. Shouldn't be a problem. I hang around in the CnCNet online lobby (well, the C&C1/RA1/D2K one) all the time. I kind of helped create it 🙂