Free Games Forumites

[Bob Williams]

Hello guys

First of all, thanks very much for all the free games supplied by various Forumites. I have sent some of the latest to my son, for whom I built the Win 10 desktop. He has been trying to get some old games to work and just gets stonewalled, which brings me to the next item.

The games he had were bought for and by his son, my No.2 gson. They were created some years ago when gson was still using Win 7. Would that mean that they are incompatible with Win 10? Son gets a message when he tries to play them: when he first accesses them, something like ‘ you need Administrator access’ and asks for a password. Now I set him as Admin when I built the box and I installed Win 10. He has no problems with anything else on the PC, runs photos, videos, music, everything but these old games. Gs has had Steam for a few years now and has not played these games. Because Gs is working a fair distance from home 7 days a week and dad is also working two shifts a week, they rarely see each other, even though living in the same house. Being a young lad, if Gs gets time off, he is out with mates. So they don’t get time to sort this out.  Does anyone have any advice or information please? Son is not really able to afford games and does not want anything like latest stuff anyway: just another form of relaxation after a hard day’s graft.

TY, Cheers, Bob.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

Hard to say what the issue is, but some of the older programs do indeed require to be ‘run as admin’ especially those that use a third-party program to manage DRM/files/data (often invisible at user level). It only adds an irritating step, but right-click on the program and select run-as Admin.

A minority will need to be run in compatibility mode. Again right-click to select.

A very small number have other incompatibilities and need to be run in a vm such as virtualbox or vmware player. That latter is harder to setup unless you have a spare Win7 install disk.

A diminishing number have totally incompatible DRM and will not even run in a vm. If they are really old games try Gog.com as they may have a low-cost DRM-free version, that may also be a solution for those games that otherwise need to run in a vm. The normal reason for games not running is poxit DRM incompatibilities. Bioware was one such company and their intrusive/buggy DRM caused me to boycott anything made by them – Mass Effect, Dragon Age etc..

 

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Ed. I will give this to my lad, atm he is busy at the academy  where he is ‘temporary’ head caretaker, running 3 large schools. Half term restart, any post-holiday startup, is a busy time for him as 2 schools are well apart and the other is miles away. ‘Temporary’ because the actual head is on his second cancer battle and the school will not give up on him. One of the reasons my lad likes working there; they are loyal to staff and treat caretaking staff like human beings.

gog.com looks good, I’ll pass that on. First thing I told him was to right click and Run As Admin, he hasn’t been back to me, but lives two villages away, commutes 10 miles each way to Louth, then often away at the distant school, working all hours atm. I gave them the Work Ethic!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

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