can previous games run on win7 from ex drive?

[Dimension5100]

using games designed for XP etcc. on an external drive using a Win 7 Machine.

I bought a Win 7 computer and would so much to keep playing my old games that were designed when XP was real popular.. ( I have Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas) and I would like to play them but I dont really think that they would be compatible with Win 7. Can I (possibly) run/install the game to an external drive and hope that it works.. Im not adding any files to anything other than the external drive, would there be compatibilty issues that would arise playing off of the Ex drive..
I did play a game that was installed on the drive from before I got this new PC, I had XP working (before the motherboard crashed, thus the new PC) and it worked fine..

Please dont give me anything like "it wont work, your screwed" and the like. I hate idiots that do that.. Please give an educated opion on whether this would be able to work.

Thanks

[smurfy]

Yes it is possible, but there are a few factors at play when you try this.

1) It really depends how deep the installer sinks it's hooks into Windows. If it relies on registry settings, it's really difficult to have a "portable" installation.

2) Drive letter assignments - as long as the Win7 drive assignments (especially for the External drive and the optical (DVD/CD)) are the same, there is a good chance it will work.

3) Save game files - will have to be copied to the local machine using the same path as the original installation

4) Hardware settings - the later GTA games just have a .set file in your "User files" (e.g. my Documents/GTA San Andreas User Files/gta_sa.set) that you can delete and let it re-create on the new machine when you start it up.

[Dimension5100]

Originally Posted by smurfy

Yes it is possible, but there are a few factors at play when you try this.
1) It really depends how deep the installer sinks it's hooks into Windows. If it relies on registry settings, it's really difficult to have a "portable" installation.
2) Drive letter assignments - as long as the Win7 drive assignments (especially for the External drive and the optical (DVD/CD)) are the same, there is a good chance it will work.
3) Save game files - will have to be copied to the local machine using the same path as the original installation
4) Hardware settings - the later GTA games just have a .set file in your "User files" (e.g. my Documents/GTA San Andreas User Files/gta_sa.set) that you can delete and let it re-create on the new machine when you start it up.

#1 I have had it installed on the external drive and the main XP hard drive, and they have both worked.
#2 Im not real clear with you on this one: the drive and the DVD player are separate drives entirely. my DVD writer is E: and my external drive is F:.. they cannot be changed (only if I put a different drive USB, Flash, or my other external) in before the one, it stays at F:
#3 I dont think I even have a my documents folder thing in win 7 here, I was right, I dont, I have libraries, and home group..
#4 I do believe that Vice city has a similair file, but its in the main directory folder (same as EXE folder) I could be wrong.

Thanks for you reply,
Ethan

[smurfy]

1) That's fine, but when you move the portable drive to a different XP PC, does it still work? If the application expects to find registry entries, they won't be in the "new" PC's windows registry and the application may fail.

2) Assuming you are not using No-CD cracks, you need to have the CD/DVD disk in the drive to play the game. If the system you install on has a DVD drive letter of "E" and a portable drive letter of "F" then you try to play on a system that has a DVD drive "F" and Portable drive "G", it will fail.

3) In Win 7 I think you'll find them in User Data/Documents

4) I haven't played VC since... http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/...d.php?t=176788

[Dimension5100]

Originally Posted by smurfy

1) That's fine, but when you move the portable drive to a different XP PC, does it still work? If the application expects to find registry entries, they won't be in the "new" PC's windows registry and the application may fail.

2) Assuming you are not using No-CD cracks, you need to have the CD/DVD disk in the drive to play the game. If the system you install on has a DVD drive letter of "E" and a portable drive letter of "F" then you try to play on a system that has a DVD drive "F" and Portable drive "G", it will fail.

3) In Win 7 I think you'll find them in User Data/Documents

4) I haven't played VC since... http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/...d.php?t=176788

1) Yes, the drive and game work fine I have tried if it the past, its worked.

2A) The only reason would be that the external hard drive takes on the next available drive letter.. if I go to your home (example) and you have to main hard drives C:/ and D:/, you have a CD-RW (E:/) and a DVD-ROM (F:/) and I plug in my external hard drive, that drive letter thus becomes G:/. and will run fine.. I think all drives that plug in like that do that same thing.. if you only had a CD-RW, no DVD, then the external will become F:/.. and so forth. I hope I didnt confuse you and explained it right.

2B) I have a full legal copy I bought from the store and yes the game does use the CD because it carries the audio files for the cutscenes and the radio.

3) it would be (I think) (My)Computer/X:/users/name/my documents

4) Vice City is an older game but it is one of my favorite that I play, mainly for the modifications you can use.

X:= whatever drive its installed on

[smurfy]

Ethan, it really still depends on the game. The GTA games, I have found, do work quite well portably.
Others (NFS Carbon, COD4 for a couple of examples) rely on the same drive lettering. So if I install them onto the portable drive from DVD F onto Portable G and then plug into the new computer which has the DVD drive G and the portable became H, I have to re-run the installer to update the drive lettering for it to work.

Another note I forgot to mention - load times will be slower. USB2 is fast, but it's still much slower than native ATA or SATA hard drive access.

[Dimension5100]

Im updating this now:
I installed it on an external drive. I just played it and save the game at ocean beach hotel (found the user files folder) my game works fine except for the fact that I somehow have only 128MB dedicated video memory.. I would like to change that, I dont know how and it will cost me at least $50 to get Geeksquad to install my other video card from my old computer... the games run fine except for the video, is there someway I can change the dedicated video memory to like 256 or higher?..

Thanks for your help smurf.