Broken Sword – The Shadow of the Templars

  Broken Sword 1 was actually designed for DOS platform, so you might encounter some really strange problems.

  First of all I tried installing the game without doing anything and it seemed to work quite fine until up to choosing the level of installation. Although I had more than 15GB of free space on my hard drive, the installation program found that I hadn’t more than 15MB. So it was time for some configuration...

  WinXP uses new way of controlling hard drive partitions and this causes the problem. One solution is to fill up your hard drive until you have less than 6GB of free space. This is a way to do it, but I would suggest another way...

  WinXP comes packed with a feature called compatibility. What it does is basically runs your programs as they would be launched on Windows95/98/Me/NT/2000; it’s really your own choice. As Broken Sword 1 was designed for DOS, but also runs on Windows95, then it would be wise to choose this option. But Windows98 mode should work without problems as well.

  So, lets get ‘cracking’ (don’t worry, its nothing illegal)... First of all you might want to try installing and running the game without any changes, it depends fully on the system if it works or not. But if you have problems, open up My computer and Open the CD drive in which you have inserted the game disk. Note: Do not double-click, this usually runs the Auto play. Instead right click the CD drive and choose Open. Now find the installer for Windows platforms, its called setup.exe. Right click on it and select Properties. There should be three tabs in the top of the window, select Compatibility from them. Tick the box under Compatibility mode and choose the operating system. I suggest you choose Windows95. Now click OK. And we’re done. Run the setup.exe and install the game.

  I had no problems running the game, but this doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly. So it is wise to use compatibility mode for running the game as well. Find the directory you installed the game in (by default C:\Sword\) and apply compatibility mode on winsword.exe the same way we did with the setup.exe.

  We’re done! So, enjoy the game!

If you should encounter any problems different to the one explained, please notify me as well. I’m happy to help and also I can update the article with different solutions.

Broken Sword II –The Smoking Mirror

  This game was fully designed for Windows operating system, so there actually should be no problems. But still there are some…

  Recently I have had some spare time to explore the most common problem with Broken Sword II - The Smoking Mirror under WinXP. In many cases the PC doesn't find any files present on the CD and thus no autorun, setup is available. After some research I believe I have the answer. There has been no feedback yet, so I really can't say wether it actually works, but if you find this solution helpful, please inform me of this (otsus@estpak.ee).

  When you install Windows XP, or get it with your new PC, then most likely all the hardware drivers are WinXP ones. My trust for Microsoft operating systems drivers has dissapeared after the Win2000 release which supported only some of my hardware. And seems this distrust approves of itself - currently the problem lies in WinXP default CD-ROM drivers.

  The problem has not yet occured with plain CD devices, or they just haven't been reported of. But there have been fair amount of cases when the porblem has appeared with DVD or CD-R/RW devices - they require more complex drivers to run and WinXP ones may not handle the specific device correctly, so the problem is most likely to occur.

  So the solution is rather easy - update your drivers. Sometimes they are included with your device on a CD or a floppy disk. But I suggest you get the most up-to-date ones and download the drivers from the internet. So just install the new drivers, reboot your machine and now the CD device should recognize the game disks.

  There is no way to tell if the installation and playing goes smoothly from now on, it depends fully on the system if it works or not. But the best cure for avoiding any possible errors is to apply compatibilty to the game and to the install application. WinXP comes packed with this feature and what it does is basically runs your programs as they would be launched on Windows95/98/Me/NT/2000; it’s really your own choice.

  Open up My computer and Open the CD drive in which you have inserted the game disk. Note: Do not double-click, this usually runs the Auto play. Instead right click the CD drive and choose Open. Now find the install application, its called setup.exe. Right click on it and select Properties. There should be three tabs in the top of the window, select Compatibility from them. Tick the box under Compatibility mode and choose the operating system. I suggest you choose Windows95 or Windows98. Now click OK. And we’re done. Run the setup.exe and install the game.

  To apply compatibility mode to the game itself find the directory you installed the game in (by default C:\Program files\Broken Sword II\) and apply compatibility mode on Sword2.exe the same way we did with the setup.exe.

  We’re done! So, enjoy the game!

  If you should encounter any problems different to the one explained, please notify me as well. I’m happy to help and also I can update the article with different solutions.