| I've not played this game in 12 years |
Sat, 04 August 2007 16:08  |
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 LordSetheris |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 5
Registered: August 2007
Location: Colorado | |
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It has been 12 years since I last played Stars! I was only 7 years old at the time, hardly old enough to have any idea what I was doing... but old enough to understand the sheer complexity and greatness that I beheld... alas, windows 95 was replaced, and the game faded away... but not from my memory. For years I searched, and finally I have found the game once again! And now I stand here, among fellow players... a mere 8 digits keeping me from my former glory...
lol
If pay I must, then pay I shall
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| Re: I've not played this game in 12 years |
Sun, 05 August 2007 04:40  |
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| NingunOtro |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 105
Registered: September 2005
Location: Brussels, Belgium | |
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Windows XP Professional 64bit has dropped support for 16bit executables as Stars!. No way it's going to run natively.
Depending on your situation, there are different solutions possible.
1. you can dual boot to a second OS. Might require a resize of your file system to accommodate a new partition. Be careful, as not all resizers handle the filesystem of your OS.
The second OS can be any Windows with legacy 16bit support that is capable of handling enough of the modern hardware of your computer (specially being mounted way at the end of a hard disk with probably a monster geometry).
The second OS can be any GNU/Linux, BSD, either 32bit or 64bit, etc. capable of handling the hardware, because they can run Wine to provide a Windows environment to Stars!
But if the only program you need to run on those is Stars!... installing a whole OS is overkill.
2. Probably not an option... ditch Windows and install the second OS standalone without dual boot.
3. Install emulation software.
- DOSBox runs on Windows XP Professional 64bit (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101437)
- DOSBox runs Windows 3.1/3.11 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edi tion) (http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=9405)
- Windows 3.1/3.11 runs Stars! (No link needed to prove you that, I think  )
Neither the DOSBox Win32 installer (1.2 MB) nor Windows 3.1/3.11 (9 1.44 MB floppies) take up much space in any computer capable of running XP Pro 64bit. Neither DOSBox, Windows 3.1/3.11, nor Stars! are resource-intensive, so I think it should work just fine (not tested by me, though)  .
Download DOSBox 0.71 from http://dosbox.sourceforge.net (Yeah, sure... it's Open Source  )
Download Microsoft Windows 3.1/3.11 ... Microsoft... Microsoft? eeeeehh... that's copyrighted, can't help you here  .
Get yourself a valid key for Stars! from http://starsautohost.org/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th=115 8  .
4) Use a GNU/Linux or BSD Live-CD to boot your system when you want to play Stars! If it can read your Windows file system (not obvious with XP Pro 64bit) then your Stars! files can stay on the harddisk, otherwise you might want to put them on some removable/writable media such as an USB stick. In fact, you might be able to get yourself a Live-USB stick and boot & play from it without touching your computers file systems at all.
Plenty of alternatives. Might interest other people too, now that Microsoft is ditching 16bit support everywhere...  ... it's about time to get rid of Micro$oft . 
Stars! ain't the only thing I do on my box... but it's fun to do...
http://upload2.net/page/download/Nz0BvJCt34PTWF9/TransCube.p ng.html
Vista? ¿Hasta la Vista?... see you later, and later, and later... and... NEVER! Windows 98SE out... Linux in, no regrets. 
[Updated on: Sun, 05 August 2007 05:28]
If we were esteemed intelligent 'enough', they would have contacted us.
If we can not find them, either we are not smart enough, or they are smarter at hiding.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: I've not played this game in 12 years |
Sun, 05 August 2007 19:25 |
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Are you running Windows inside of DOSBox?
You won't be able to run Stars straight from DOS, you'll need to load Windows on top (Windows 3.11 was suggested above.)
If you are feeling adventurous, you might like to play around with Virtual Server. You can essentially run any OS you want in a virtual machine (much more powerfull than using DOSBox.) It's more demanding on your PC though, so if you are running older hardware, then you are probably better off sticking with DOSBox.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/downloads/def ault.mspx
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