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Lucas Arts TIE Fighter in Windows XP Pro

L

LordFortius

Senior member
I was rummaging around in my office the other day and found my old LucasArts TIE Fighter CD. For nostalgia's sake, I decided to try and play it on my Windows XP machine. Unfortunately, the game was designed for Windows 95 and it seems to have a small, extremely annoying problem when I try to run it in XP. I sent an email to lucasarts tech support but of course all I got was the standard "oh, we dont support customers with problems related to [Insert other companies' product and name here]."

Here is the email I sent them, it gives a basic outline of the problem. I don't expect very many people to still have this game or have any ideas relating to how to fix this issue, but I'd appreciate any help on this matter all the same.

Recently, I tried to install and run one of my old favorites on my Windows XP Professional machine. Star Wars Tie Fighter Collector's CD-ROM seemed to install fine, but it is when I try to run it that i get problems. The first problem was that the tiestart.exe application kept asking me to install DirectX 5.2. I found I could circumvent this in two
ways:
1. Just launch tie95.exe directly.
2. Run tiestart.exe in windows 95 compatibility mode.

However, this brings me another problem. Whenever I try to play the game I get the message:

You need a joystick to play TIE Fighter CD.
Please check your joystick and make sure it's plugged in.

I checked my joystick of course, which is a Mirosoft Sidewinder Precision Pro, and it connects to the computer via a gameport on my sound card, not USB. Its drivers seem to be fine, and it works in all of my other applications, including X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. I also understand from several message boards that many other customers have a similar problem. I would really appreciate any insight your tech support could offer me and the rest of the community as to how to solve this problem and get your product working.

 
Unless I'm mistaken those games are DOS based, I don't think you have a chance of getting them to work. Go back to ME if you wanna play DOS games.
 
You're right in the statement that the orginal TIE Fighter, as well as the original X-Wing, were DOS based... However, LucasArts rereleased these two games on CD and in the process remade them for Windows 95. This fact is further reinforced by the game's main executable, which is named TIE95.exe
 
I've been trying to get TIE Fighter Enhanced (win95 version) to work in win2k / winxp for as long as I can remember. And, I keep running into the same problem as you - needing to install directx 5.2 or higher.

I read some people have had success using compatibility mode or ACT 2.0 (application compatibility toolikit.. find at microsft's site).

If you get it working, please PM me or respond here.

As a side note-I did get it working once in win2k using compatibility mode, and eclipsed my old high score not half way through the game. Then, it decided to mysteriously quit each time I tried to start a new campaign. I believe TIE fighter realized that I was about to set a new universal record for the game, and refused to run. It never did again. ever. It must have decided that demanding directx 5.2 or greater was much easier than getting repeatedly whipped by me 😀

Another Side note-I was using a gravis analog pro joystick (pretty old).. TIE fighter didn't have a problem with it.


NeonFiremanQtip
 
Yeah, I heard about that thing with the application compatibility toolkit, but it continued to ask me for the joystick. I think that fix only works on w2k sp2.
 
Ok, here ya go


Install ACT 2.0 and then use the QFixApp 1.5 Win98-layer, and UNCHECK the emulate joystick flag!

People still have problems getting it to work in 3d mode, so youre stuck in 2d for now...
 
Install Application Compatibility Toolkit 2.0., its on Microsoft's site, however if you can't find it I will go ahead and find a link for you. Also, go to the directory where you installed tie fighter and check both the executables tiestart.exe and tie95.exe. Right click on them, go to properties, and then to the compatibility tab. Make sure nothing is already checked and that everything is clear, or else the information in this tab will conflict with the stuff you are about to do in the qfixapp. Heres the rest of what I did:

1. Open up qfixapp
2. Click on browse and select tiestart.exe
3. Select win95 (or win98?) layer in the layers tab
4. In the fixes tab, uncheck the EmulateJoystick option
5. Click the advanced button.
6. Click Add matching file... and select tie95.exe
7. Expand all the options in the pane below this button and check all of the boxes.
8. Press the Run button to make sure the fix is going to work. If it doesnt, try using a windows 98 layer instead, and check that you did all the previous things properly again, especially clearing out the programs compatibility tab to take out conflicts like I said earlier. Basically, keep fooling with the settings till you've got it.
9. Once you've gotten the program working, click the create fix support button and follow it through the next dialogs (just press yes, ok, etc.) That should enter the fix into the windows registry or whatever database the program uses to keep track of the programs. Restart the computer and hopefully when it boots up again you'll be able to run the game by just clicking on its icon. It may not work if you launch from cd though, so just go ahead and do it from the start menu.

Other than that, there's not much more I can help you with really. Just keep trying till you get it is all I can say, because thats what seemed to work for me.
 
Ok - I'll try my best to remember to post when I get around to loading it up and trying it out (probably by this weekend). Thanks again for the info!

Jason
 
Damn, this post re-kindled my interest in the game... I have a collectors edition cd with tie fighter and defender of the empire, but it looks like it's dos only 🙁.
 
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