Getting Heroes 2 to work on Windows XP

[astral76minor]

I remember a time when Heroes 2 worked on Windows XP from the original Succession Wars CD.

I own the expansion as well and would love to get them to work. These are the original discs from 1996-7.

The Succession Wars disc installs the program successfully. But then when I click on the icon, it says "Windows needs to close." No game.

I already tryed the compatability modes for the HEROES2W.exe file and nothing.

So does anyone know how to get Heroes 2 to work properly on Windows XP SP3? Please, no DOSBOX. I am trying to get the Network IPX to work for multiplayer mode on Hamachi with H2. So it needs to load properly from Windows XP. If someone got it to work on Windows 7, that would be even better.

DOSbox is not recommended, since it will not support online play with Hamachi.

Any support would be greatly appreciated.

[GreatEmerald]

Do you have the patches installed?

[astral76minor]

I use the 64-bit O/S with Windows 7. Sadly, I had to set up another computer that runs the 32-bit version of XP. H2 runs fine from the original discs in this method. H2 will not run on 64-bit systems. The GOG version might, but I heard the music is all screwed up. This is why the original discs beat out GOG since you get the real music without chops. Go old school with H2 and you'll love it. As long as you have a drone computer for it.

[GreatEmerald]

Hmm, this is interesting. H2 probably has 16bit code in it. I'm not sure how it renders it; but if it's using software rendering (there's a high chance it does) you can set up a virtual environment (see Windows XP Mode of Windows 7) and just play it from there.

[Shyranis]

I can get H2 to run fine (in Win 7 64 bit) I think, but the CD music does not work for me. Heroes 1 however only runs in a tiny window (smaller than actual game resolution) for some reason when I run it.

edit: Fortunately I have the DOS version of Heroes 1 too.

[Darkström]

I recently installed H2 on my Win7 64-bit computer and it also ran fine (except for CD audio, I had to pick midi). Today I wanted to play again, and all of a sudden, it doesn't work anymore?! When I start it, the screen goes black, but just when the menu is supposed to appear I'm back on the desktop. The process appears to be running, but I don't get to play the game.

I'd thought that this is because of the 64-bit system, but then why the hell was I able to play it the first time?

I'm desperate!