How to get King's Quest VII
to run in Windows 2000 or XP
by Collector

• King's Quest VII Updates/Patches

  Update: I now have patches to upgrade versions 1.4 and 1.51, Windows only, to version 2 with the DOS interpreter. Not only does this solve the problem of not working in XP, it allows the game to be run in DOSBox, which also avoids the fire cracker speed bug. See the Update page for these updaters.

Version 2.0* of King's Quest VII seems to install and run flawlessly (except for the fire cracker bug which is speed related) on Windows XP. Versions 1.1 to 1.51 of King's Quest VII crash on launch with a dll error. Unfortunately, these versions also have no DOS version of the game included and you can't update to version 2.0, as Sierra never made a patch that would upgrade to this version. The only patch Sierra released for King's Quest VII was KQ7PAT.EXE, for versions 1.4 and 1.51, which only fixes a few minor glitches.

Shortly after shipping version 1.1 of the game in 1994, Sierra found many errors, particularly installation issues, fatal exceptions, and game freezes. Also, the game came out shortly before Win95 was released, which posed its own set of problems for the game.

To fix these problems with version 1.1, Sierra had to re-code a lot of the game. The patch would have been too large fit onto a single floppy since the fixes were so extensive. So, Sierra decided to send a replacement CD-ROM of version 1.5 to customers with version 1.1 who wished to update their game.

There is hope for owners of versions 1.1 to 1.51 of King's Quest VII. There are two game executables on the disc. When you install the game, the Windows shortcut will point to SIERRAWS.EXE. If you replace this with SIERRAW.EXE, the other executable, the game will run. Copy SIERRAW.EXE to your installed folder and change the target of your Windows shortcut from SIERRAWS.EXE to SIERRAW.EXE. The game will now start without crashing or errors.

Now that Windows 3x can be installed in the CVS of DOSBox, the Windows version can be played in DOSBox. This solution will also avoid the fire cracker speed bug.

*NOTE: Version 2 can be found on the King's Quest Collection Series and The Roberta Williams Anthology

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