Running King's Quest Mask of Eternity
in Windows 2000 or XP
by Collector

• King's Quest Mask of Eternity Updates/Patches

Sierra's King's Quest Mask of Eternity Runs on Windows 2000 / XP, but you might have trouble with the game hanging at certain points in the game, such as the scene with the henchman coming out of the windmill in Daventry. It is generally recommended that you apply the "MOE13FG.EXE" [991 kb] patch on a clean install of the game. If you want to keep your old save games, move the SAVE sub-folder from within your MASK folder elsewhere for safe keeping before proceeding. To do a clean install of Mask of Eternity:

1. Uninstall the game using the Sierra Utilities (Start--> All Programs--> SIERRA--> Sierra Utilities)

2. Delete the MASK folder (typically C:\SIERRA\MASK)

3. Reinstall the game. If you receive the error that one or more files will not be verified, something was still in the MASK folder. Delete it and reinstall.

4. Apply the "MOE13FG.EXE" patch to the game BEFORE restarting MoE

5. Move the SAVE folder back in the MASK folder

This will not necessarily fix the problem, so check it by restoring to the point of the hang to see if it is fixed. If not, you can try these other things:

• Set the game to run in Compatibility mode for Windows 95 or 98. Some players have had success with setting Compatibility mode for Windows NT4

• Apply the MS Visual Basic 6 Runtime update [1 Mb] to your system, XP does not need it (though it will not hurt XP.)

• Defragment your hard disk (right click on the drive in "My Computer" and choose "Properties" and click the "Tools" tab at the top) though newer, larger drives do not need it as much as older, smaller drives do.

• Free up some system resources by turning off other running programs like anti-virus, screen savers, any instant messengers (AIM, ICU, MSN Messenger) etc. You can turn off running programs with the "Task Manager" by pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and END TASK on all programs. You may need to end some running Processes as well.

If after trying all of the suggestions and nothing seems to help, the problem might be from playing this game from third person perspective, which can hang when encountering the henchman in Daventry. To get around this, just change your camera view to first person perspective (press F2) before you leave the windmill with the ax to face the henchman. If you prefer to play in third person, you can change back after you face the henchman.

As a last resort, you can download a save game from just past the point of the Lockup.

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