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Starcraft (orignal+Brood War) on Windows 7

Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
edited March 2010 in Help / Advice Forum
I recently purchased the Starcraft Battlechest because A) It's one of my favorite games ever and B) I needed to have a game registered to my Battle.net account in order to qualify for Beta.

Anyway, I installed it and I have a problem where it crashes after 5 to 10 minutes of gameplay. When it crashes it completely locks up my computer, and I can't CTRL+ALT+DELETE or anything. My only option is to turn it off with the power button.

I googled the problem and though I've found a ton of people with similar problems, I've found nothing that claims to fix it. I sent an e-mail to Blizzard Support but I figured that some of you must have encountered it and if anyone knows of a solution, you would.

Anyone else have this problem, and if so, were you able to solve it?

Patrick Ripoll on

Posts

  • RuckusRuckus Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    You could try giving the Windows XP Virtual PC a try:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

    Ruckus on
  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    It says I need Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate to run Windows XP Mode. I got Home Premium. *sigh*

    Thanks anyway for the suggestion.

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • Beef AvengerBeef Avenger Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I just reinstalled starcraft and also had issues with Windows 7. My problem was way different, but who knows maybe the same fix will work for you. In mine the colors would go all corrupt and basically be unviewable. Fix i found involved making a new .txt file, filling it with:

    taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
    c:\"Program Files"\"StarCraft"\"StarCraft.exe"
    start explorer.exe

    (fix for wherever your file is). Then rename the file from .txt to .bat and run it. Basically it closes explorer while running the game, which fixed my issues.

    Beef Avenger on
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  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Wow, that's a pretty awesome and ingenious fix.

    I fixed that on my computer by setting the .exe compatibility mode to Win98.

    Zxerol on
  • SkyGheNeSkyGheNe Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I have the same issue, just to let you know. I play on my laptop instead.

    D:

    SkyGheNe on
  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Yeah, I've seen that other issue with the colors referenced during my Google searches, and seen that fix referenced. Apparently that fixes the color problem but not the crashing. I'll try it anyway and report back. We'll lick this yet!

    EDIT: Nope. But I may have messed up the .bat, because it didn't even open Starcraft.

    Also worth noting, I tried playing the game and exiting out of it before it froze. Well I was able to exit, but my computer was stuck in 256 colors with 640x480 resolution. So I had to restart anyway.

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Switching compatibility mode of the program to Win 98 worked great. I also set "Run in 256 colors" and "Run in 640 x 480 resolution" in the compatibility settings. I played a mission, completed it, and exited out with no issue. VICTORY.

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • fightinfilipinofightinfilipino Angry as Hell #BLMRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    you could also try getting a Battle.net account, registering your copy of the Battlechest there, and then downloading the digital distribution copy from the Battle.net store. it's free, and the download version seems to fix compatibility issues with Win7.

    fightinfilipino on
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  • JustinSane07JustinSane07 Really, stupid? Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2010
    These are all way too complicated.

    Get a program called Chaos Launcher from Team Liquid.

    Turn on W-Mode.

    Launch.

    All set.

    JustinSane07 on
  • RuckusRuckus Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Note that the aforementioned batch script assumes you have starcraft installed on the default directory on your C: on a 32 bit system. On a 64 bit system, I think the default installation path changes from "Program Files" to "Program Files (86)"

    it may work better for some users in this format:

    taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
    "c:\Program Files\StarCraft\StarCraft.exe"
    start explorer.exe

    or possibly as

    taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
    c:\Progra~1\StarCr~1\StarCra~1.exe
    start explorer.exe

    Ruckus on
  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I spoke too soon. Just had it freeze up again. And the deposit on this "Mission Accomplished" sign is non-refundable. When it rains it pours.

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    fightinfilipino wrote: »
    you could also try getting a Battle.net account, registering your copy of the Battlechest there, and then downloading the digital distribution copy from the Battle.net store. it's free, and the download version seems to fix compatibility issues with Win7.

    I uninstalled Starcraft and downloaded the DD copy, and installed that. Played for about 30 minutes before it crashed.
    JustinSane07 wrote:
    These are all way too complicated.

    Get a program called Chaos Launcher from Team Liquid.

    Turn on W-Mode.

    Launch.

    All set.

    I looked it up and saw this warning on the site:

    "Like every 3rd partytool working together with Starcraft there is a small risk, that blizzard decides to invalidate the users Accounts/CD-Keys. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!"

    What kind of a risk are we talking about?

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • KorlashKorlash Québécois TorontoRegistered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I've only been using it to play singleplayer, so I have no idea if they can ban you for it, but I think pretty much everyone at team liquid uses this.

    Korlash on
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  • TopiaTopia Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Patrick Ripoll wrote: »
    I needed to have a game registered to my Battle.net account in order to qualify for Beta.

    Do you? I don't think you do. Sorry for hijacking just want to ask where you heard this.

    Topia on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Ruckus wrote: »
    You could try giving the Windows XP Virtual PC a try:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

    XP mode is not for games.

    Azio on
  • Atlus ParkerAtlus Parker Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    I just want to chime in and say that I had this same exact issue with Starcraft on Win7. I ended up updating my video drivers and that fixed it. Good luck.

    Atlus Parker on
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  • Patrick RipollPatrick Ripoll Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Topia wrote: »
    Patrick Ripoll wrote: »
    I needed to have a game registered to my Battle.net account in order to qualify for Beta.

    Do you? I don't think you do. Sorry for hijacking just want to ask where you heard this.

    I signed up for Battle.net to join the beta and it said that I needed to have a Blizzard game registered on there to even apply. I've also read the same in various forums.

    Patrick Ripoll on
  • SaerisSaeris Borb Enthusiast flapflapflapflapRegistered User regular
    edited March 2010
    I had this issue once, but only once. It seems... rare, I guess. Maybe it has something to do with the settings I use. On the Compatibility tab for the executable, I have every box in "Settings" checked, but nothing else checked.

    I seem to recall, when I was researching this issue myself a while back, that forcing it to run as an older version of Windows only served to screw it up worse, and that "Run in 256 colors" and "Run in 640 x 480 resolution" were the important settings to check. It's a 256-color game with only that resolution anyway, so checking those boxes probably just informs the OS that it should be extra careful handling the rendering.

    My only issue with it now is that I cannot Alt-Tab out without coming back to it using 16 colors. Not 16-bit, just 16.

    Saeris on
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  • TopiaTopia Registered User regular
    edited March 2010
    Patrick Ripoll wrote: »
    Topia wrote: »
    Patrick Ripoll wrote: »
    I needed to have a game registered to my Battle.net account in order to qualify for Beta.

    Do you? I don't think you do. Sorry for hijacking just want to ask where you heard this.

    I signed up for Battle.net to join the beta and it said that I needed to have a Blizzard game registered on there to even apply. I've also read the same in various forums.

    Oh a game. Any game. Yea

    Topia on
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