Even though it does not run on Vista 32 bit, it does run on Windows 7 Business 32 bit without any tweaking.  I just executed the winemp.exe (Empire v 2.03) and started wasting time again.  I am so happy ...

I spoke too soon.  You can certainly play a game and save it but you cannot open a
saved game.  Still as the "Access Violation" error when opening an existing game.
 Sigh...

NeverOutofTune wrote:
> I spoke too soon.  You can certainly play a game and save it but you cannot open a
> saved game.  Still as the "Access Violation" error when opening an existing game.
>  Sigh...

An existing game that you saved with that version of Empire, or with an old version?  I've a feeling I've noticed something along those lines before....

Moreover, have you got anywhere since last time with finding out what the differences are between versions 2.01 and 2.03?

I'm also a little surprised as I thought that the version I had contributed (with many bugs fixed) worked in Vista.  I must've not got back into playing in longer than I'd realised.

That said, some of the its code needs updating to current D.  I have a version on my computer that has the code fixes put in, but which I still haven't got round to giving to Walter to put on the site.  It works in Vista and, while it AVs on some old game files, has no trouble with self-created ones.

I'll try and get Walter to put it up soon.

Stewart.

I only have one version of Empire.  I pulled it from this site.  It is titled in the downloads section as "Empire 2.01".  The file is empirebin.zip.  The .exe will start on all of my platforms (Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7).  In the Help -> About, it shows as 2.03.  So, I am not sure which version I have but I would think the Help -> About would be more accurate.  Thus, I cannot tell you the difference between 2.01 and 2.03.

With Vista and Windows 7, I can play and save games but I get Access Violations anytime I try to open a saved game regardless of which platform I saved originally.  I have saved games in all three platforms, XP, Vista and Windows 7. Vista and Windows 7 refuse to open any of them popping up the Access Violation error.  XP also cannot open a game saved in Vista or Windows 7.

I just discovered the XP Compatibility Mode in Windows 7 which is really a Virtual PC version of XP with new clothes.  A search on Microsoft sire will explain how this works.  Empire 2.01/2.03 runs great in this mode and it is transparent that I am running in a virtual session other than slight hesitation now and then.

This is cleaner than my previous method on Vista which I had to manually start an XP Virtual machine, then launch Empire (although what I did was hibernate the virtual session with Empire running to make it easier to restart).

With the Windows 7 XP Compatibility Mode, the virtual machine takes a lot less space than the manual method I had on Vista.  Microsoft allows you to download a pre-built XP virtual image that is bare bones and has links to the Windows 7 environment.  They did a nice job with this feature.

So, for now, I am running Empire 2.01/2.03 on a Windows 7 machine a la XP compatibility mode and with respectable response time.

One of these days, I might try to calculate the number of hours I have lost due to Empire.  I'll probably need to check into an Empire rehab clinic :-)