What's the deal with Shadow Watch?

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Won't work on my newer machine either, but still works on an old one.

I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long time ago,
but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly, given the age of the
game, nobody there probably cares.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

On Wed, 25 May 2005 23:08:24 -0500, "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:

>Won't work on my newer machine either, but still works on an old one.
>
>I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long time ago,
>but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly, given the age of the
>game, nobody there probably cares.
>
Too bad because it was one enjoyable "small" game.

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On Wed, 25 May 2005 23:08:24 -0500, "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:

>Won't work on my newer machine either, but still works on an old one.

What version of DirectX do you have on that machine?

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On Wed, 25 May 2005 23:08:24 -0500, "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:


>I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long time ago,
>but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly, given the age of the
>game, nobody there probably cares.
>

I demand a patch! ;-)

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On Thu, 26 May 2005 10:15:46 +0200, S. Delerme <delerme@free.fr>
wrote:


>Too bad because it was one enjoyable "small" game.

Looks like I'll never find out how enjoyable it actually is.

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S. Delerme <delerme@free.fr> wrote in
news:vc1b919il4asnqtgum184oi3fuvjap0r35@4ax.com:

> On Wed, 25 May 2005 23:08:24 -0500, "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:
>
>>Won't work on my newer machine either, but still works on an old one.
>>
>>I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long
>>time ago, but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly, given
>>the age of the game, nobody there probably cares.
>>
> Too bad because it was one enjoyable "small" game.

It might be old enough to do things the DOS way instead of the Windows
way. Looking for drivers and vieo hooks which used to be loaded before
windows, not thru windows. Now you "step out" of windows to run old games
and those drivers arent there. Video and sound bombs out.

You might try using DOSBOX which creates a small DOS environment to run
old games in. With the XP machine you might be out of luck depending on
how XP was loaded. If it was an upgrade then the drive might still be
formated as FAT32, if it was put on from scratch on that box then it
might be formated with the new NTFS format.

With my XP I have 2 drives. I have the C drive as NTFS for the XP
environment. I have the D drive as FAT32 for older stuff. I have no
problem with any of them.

Gandalf Parker

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On Thu, 26 May 2005 14:01:00 GMT, Gandalf Parker
<gandalf@most.of.my.favorite.sites> wrote:


>It might be old enough to do things the DOS way instead of the Windows
>way. Looking for drivers and vieo hooks which used to be loaded before
>windows, not thru windows. Now you "step out" of windows to run old games
>and those drivers arent there. Video and sound bombs out.
>
>You might try using DOSBOX which creates a small DOS environment to run
>old games in. With the XP machine you might be out of luck depending on
>how XP was loaded. If it was an upgrade then the drive might still be
>formated as FAT32, if it was put on from scratch on that box then it
>might be formated with the new NTFS format.
>
>With my XP I have 2 drives. I have the C drive as NTFS for the XP
>environment. I have the D drive as FAT32 for older stuff. I have no
>problem with any of them.
>
>Gandalf Parker

No Gandalf, SW is a Windows game and uses DirectX and Java and is not
a Dos game. Plus as I said before I tried it on two PC's with XP and
WinME. Only commonality is that both machines have Directx9.0c so
maybe SW requires an older version of Directx to run which means the
game is NFG and goes in the garbage bin. I have FAT32 and NTFS in XP
too and I tried it on FAT32. Thx for the replies from all.

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On Thu, 26 May 2005 11:51:10 -0700, Fisher <fisher@no_email.here>
wrote:

[snip]

>No Gandalf, SW is a Windows game and uses DirectX and Java and is not
>a Dos game. Plus as I said before I tried it on two PC's with XP and
>WinME. Only commonality is that both machines have Directx9.0c so
>maybe SW requires an older version of Directx to run which means the
>game is NFG and goes in the garbage bin. I have FAT32 and NTFS in XP
>too and I tried it on FAT32. Thx for the replies from all.

I can play it on Win XP SP1, DX9.0c, and NTFS.

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On Fri, 27 May 2005 13:01:47 +1000, Ian Galbraith <me@privacy.net>
wrote:



>I can play it on Win XP SP1, DX9.0c, and NTFS.
>

I have SP2 but I know that is not the issue. Wonder what the magic
config is for this game?

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Fisher wrote:
> On Fri, 27 May 2005 13:01:47 +1000, Ian Galbraith <me@privacy.net>
> wrote:
>
>> I can play it on Win XP SP1, DX9.0c, and NTFS.
>>
> I have SP2 but I know that is not the issue. Wonder what the magic
> config is for this game?

Seemed to be related to the Java you had when this same question went around
about 2 years ago. My system shipped with a Java runtime and I (eventually)
got it to work again for me. I think others who got their version of XP
after Microsoft had to stop distributing their own had more issues.

I had to go find my old post to remember what goofiness fixed it for me. Not
sure if this will help anyone but it worked for me:

"The original shortcut after installation pointed to 'ShadowWatch.exe'. I
would lanch, get an error, acknowledge the error and then be back at my
desktop. Strange thing I noticed was a file called 'sw.exe' that was
generated during the launch of the game and was removed after I acknowledged
the error. For the heck of it, with the error message still on the screen,
I made the 'sw.exe' read-only so it couldn't be deleted. After that, if I
started the game using the 'sw.exe' executable instead... it ran!"

It's still installed but no idea if it still works for me. I should hunt
down the cd and see...

-craig

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On Sat, 28 May 2005 22:04:05 -0600, "Craig Hulett"
<First.Last@comcast.net> wrote:


>Seemed to be related to the Java you had when this same question went around
>about 2 years ago. My system shipped with a Java runtime and I (eventually)
>got it to work again for me. I think others who got their version of XP
>after Microsoft had to stop distributing their own had more issues.
>
>I had to go find my old post to remember what goofiness fixed it for me. Not
>sure if this will help anyone but it worked for me:
>
>"The original shortcut after installation pointed to 'ShadowWatch.exe'. I
>would lanch, get an error, acknowledge the error and then be back at my
>desktop. Strange thing I noticed was a file called 'sw.exe' that was
>generated during the launch of the game and was removed after I acknowledged
>the error. For the heck of it, with the error message still on the screen,
>I made the 'sw.exe' read-only so it couldn't be deleted. After that, if I
>started the game using the 'sw.exe' executable instead... it ran!"
>
>It's still installed but no idea if it still works for me. I should hunt
>down the cd and see...
>
>-craig
>

I did install Sun's Java to try and fix it but it was a no go. SW has
it's own Java runtime within its own game folder anyway. Scew the
stinkin' game. It only cost me $7.00 CAD anyway. :-)

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

S. Delerme wrote:
> "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:
>> I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long
>> time ago, but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly,
>> given the age of the game, nobody there probably cares.
>>
> Too bad because it was one enjoyable "small" game.

Is it just me or that game was incredibly easy?

There isn't enough meat there to begin with and I know you're supposed to
replay taking different paths and all but c'mon, give us a bit of challenge
at least.

I paid full price for it at the time and didnt think it was worth it, 10 us
bucks is about right I'd say.

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On Tue, 31 May 2005 02:05:16 GMT, "BuckFush" <notmyre@laddress.com>
wrote:

>S. Delerme wrote:
>> "SK" <sckallst@charter.net> wrote:
>>> I tried to work this out with one of the folks at Red Storm a long
>>> time ago, but I don't think even they know what to do. Frankly,
>>> given the age of the game, nobody there probably cares.
>>>
>> Too bad because it was one enjoyable "small" game.
>
>Is it just me or that game was incredibly easy?
>
>There isn't enough meat there to begin with and I know you're supposed to
>replay taking different paths and all but c'mon, give us a bit of challenge
>at least.
>
Maybe that's what I enjoyed, not having to play the perfect game to
win...

On the other hand, I remember the only other game I finished,
Incubation, and a few of the scenarios could simply not get done on
the first time.

(and don't get me started on "dark omen")

>I paid full price for it at the time and didnt think it was worth it, 10 us
>bucks is about right I'd say.
>
I paid full price too but felt I got more out of it than RoN (it's not
a statement of how good each game is, just a matter of taste)

I finally found my answer to this problem (which I think is the same as yours). The answer I found was:

"Usually it has something to do with the old Java libraries used by the game (remember it was out in 2000, before Windows XP). Try looking up an old version of javai.dll library through Google and overwrite the old version in jre\bin folder inside the game's folder with it. That helped me run the game a few years ago even without any compatibility settings (one other guy confirmed he was good with it, too, I think).

Surprisingly, it runs well without that trick on my present computer... Maybe it's because the current version of Java Runtime Environment is installed - try grabbing it at http://java.com/. Hope all this helps."

Personally, I did the following:

1. Downloaded javai.dll from: http://www.down-dll.com/index.html?frameA=dll/j/javai.d... (though I'm sure there are a hundred other sites one could use).
2. Unzipped the javai.dll file into the Redstorm directory.


It worked. (I also ran the program in compatibility mode- and made the SW.exe file that is created read-only. Though I'm not sure if either of those steps were necessary. What I know for sure is that javai.dll was a necessary part of the solution. Thank you for those who list solutions to these type of things. I've never done anything of the kind, but I thought I would add this to sort of 'pay it back' so to speak. Thanks.

They might have cared in 2005, but probably don't care now.