Tech help needed (sim city 3000 on win xp)

[SnakePit]

I bought sim city 3000 for my son off ebay last week, first it was delivered whilst I was out and was taken back to the post office so he had to wait over the weekend for it...then on the monday it didn't come, tuesday they said I had to wait another day before arranging delivery... he was getting really upset about it and I promised him it would be here by the time he got home from school today so he's gone to school all excited, anyway it arrived this morning and won't work on the PC!!! It was brought out before windows xp so although it installs ok it just refuses to play.

He's going to be gutted. Is there ANY way at all I can get it working on windows XP?

is there a web address on the cover of the disc ? maybe there is a helpline number on there you could call,or maybe you could do a search for the makers.

Are there any error messages or warnings coming up when you try and run it?

i will ask my son- he is home from school at 3

he is a whizz!

he's autistic- and a fanatic of sims games..so will really get why your son is so gutted.

he may come up with a complex solution...how complex is your son's PC skills???!!! My son assumes everyone knows what he is on about!

Try this.... i'll post the link to the website i found this on.......

Go to Control Panel. Click on Display. Click on Settings. Set color quality at 16 bits and screen resolution to 800x600. My Simcity 3000 runs like a dream now. (My resolution was set higher and on 32 bit

if not try this (i know my ds1 does this alot for older games)

Put your CD in - hold down the left Shift button to keep the CD from starting up automatically. Bring up windows explorer. Click to the CD drive and find setup.exe. Right click on setup.exe, and choose Properties. Click on the Compatibility tab. Put a check mark in the box next to Run this Program in Compatibility mode. In the drop down box, choose Windows 98. Hit OK, let it install. If it installs completely, don't run the game immediately. To run the game, if it puts an icon on your desktop, do the same procedure as above to put it in compatibility mode for windows 98. Then try the game.

CJ - You really are my long lost twin. I love the Sims and Sims-type games.

Snakepit - If you don't get an answer before, I'll ask my dh when he gets home. I remember him saying that a lot of games don't seem to like XP but I can't remember if there's a way around it.

X'ed posts with the Junkie.

or this (again from a web forum i found on google)
"anyway u need to goto microsoft and download Virtual PC (now free) then get and install windows ME or earlier onto a virtual PC coughp2pcough then install Simcity 300 onto that "

may work???

Hi CT!

And don't we just love games that help us and our boys live a virtual life!

DS1 has learnt more social skills from SIMS than with real life!!!!

Tis true. Ds2 loves watching me play Sims 2 and calls it "Man in the house game".

or try this:

"There is a patch available at the following website that will allow your system to operate the software properly. Older installations of Windows XP may be missing a 'virtual device driver' required to run SimCity 3000. The patch is available at the Windows update website. To get there, open Internet Explorer, go to Tools, and select Windows Update. You will be taken to a Microsoft site. The site will scan your Windows operating system and bring up all the patches you have not yet installed. Some of these are optional, but most are critical to maintain Windows security and to prevent virus attacks, so it's a good idea to do this often to keep your computer safe."
Important information for teams using SimCity 3000:
Running SimCity 3000 on Windows 2000 and Windows XP Instructions: The SimCity 3000 packaging indicates that the program runs on Windows 95 or Windows 98, but it will run in Windows 2000 without difficulty. Windows XP users will have to set SimCity 3000 to run in Windows 2000 mode as follows:
After installing the program, go to Start, All Programs, Maxis, SimCity 3000.
Instead of launching SimCity, right click on the SimCity 3000 icon, select Properties, then select the Compatibility tab and change it to whichever mode works best in your system. "

again from website i found