Reinstall XP games on Vista?

[MrToilet]

I just upgraded from XP to Vista (dual boot) on my computer, and I'm wondering if I have to re-install every game I have installed under XP. I tried to start Call of Duty 4 and it just errored with a DirectX error.... since Vista is DX10 am I just better off re-installing everything?

And another question- I suppose all my save games are toast if I re-install?

Granted, since I have it set for dual-boot I can always go back to XP if I want to play the games, but that would get annoying after a while, and I kind of want to stay in Vista- for some reason it runs a lot smoother and quicker than XP on my system (Opteron 165 @ 2.7, 2 GB RAM, 8800GTS)

Thanks!

 

[QuixoticOne]

Unfortunately you'll have to reinstall them all.
To add insult to injury you'll have to reinstall them in *different* directories if you still want them to work when you dual-boot back into XP.

You can actually usually preserve your saved games and configuration settings if you know which folders/files to look for that have your game saves and customized settings in them. Unfortunately they don't often make it easy / obvious to find those files so you can back them up and restore them. Ask around about specific games and someone can tell you which places to look for the saved game files to copy over to the other install directory. Of course don't delete / uninstall the games until you get a copy of your saved games, though SOME games will still leave your personal saved games behind when you "uninstall" the game... but not all of them.

This whole software installation mess is another fine example of microsoft brain damage; it shouldn't matter how many OS variants you multi-boot, if you told it to install something to say E: then as long as E: is accessable in whatever OS you're running, your installed programs should still work but, no, that'd make too much sense.

Originally posted by: MrToilet
I just upgraded from XP to Vista (dual boot) on my computer, and I'm wondering if I have to re-install every game I have installed under XP. I tried to start Call of Duty 4 and it just errored with a DirectX error.... since Vista is DX10 am I just better off re-installing everything?

And another question- I suppose all my save games are toast if I re-install?

Granted, since I have it set for dual-boot I can always go back to XP if I want to play the games, but that would get annoying after a while, and I kind of want to stay in Vista- for some reason it runs a lot smoother and quicker than XP on my system (Opteron 165 @ 2.7, 2 GB RAM, 8800GTS)

Thanks!

 

[MrToilet]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Unfortunately you'll have to reinstall them all.
To add insult to injury you'll have to reinstall them in *different* directories if you still want them to work when you dual-boot back into XP.

You can actually usually preserve your saved games and configuration settings if you know which folders/files to look for that have your game saves and customized settings in them. Unfortunately they don't often make it easy / obvious to find those files so you can back them up and restore them. Ask around about specific games and someone can tell you which places to look for the saved game files to copy over to the other install directory. Of course don't delete / uninstall the games until you get a copy of your saved games, though SOME games will still leave your personal saved games behind when you "uninstall" the game... but not all of them.

This whole software installation mess is another fine example of microsoft brain damage; it shouldn't matter how many OS variants you multi-boot, if you told it to install something to say E: then as long as E: is accessable in whatever OS you're running, your installed programs should still work but, no, that'd make too much sense.

Originally posted by: MrToilet
I just upgraded from XP to Vista (dual boot) on my computer, and I'm wondering if I have to re-install every game I have installed under XP. I tried to start Call of Duty 4 and it just errored with a DirectX error.... since Vista is DX10 am I just better off re-installing everything?

And another question- I suppose all my save games are toast if I re-install?

Granted, since I have it set for dual-boot I can always go back to XP if I want to play the games, but that would get annoying after a while, and I kind of want to stay in Vista- for some reason it runs a lot smoother and quicker than XP on my system (Opteron 165 @ 2.7, 2 GB RAM, 8800GTS)

Thanks!

Damn.

Lol

 

[Martimus]

edit: I am not sure why I wrote this comment here, as it doesn't seem to have any use, so I am deleting it.