Decided to buy the game

Now on Vista its a bit tricky to get it to work - it won't work from scratch, at least it didn't for me.

First of all, the game must have administrator rights to even run, the bin/XR_3DA.exe file within the game directory.

The game was made for XP without any regard to Vista, as you'll experience fast - it won't save anything, settings or save games at all, perhaps even crash when you try so. I found the reason for this is that it try to save files in this folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Stalker-shoc

There is not Documents and Settings on Vista...

However, C:\Documents and Settings\ refers to C:\Users, but C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\ refers to C:\ProgramData... And to make matters even more complicated, C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\ points to a third place.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\ points to C:\Users\Public\Documents

Just a shortlist of the XP to Vista structure for perhaps future uses: (Just the list needed for this though)


I found that the Documents folder within C:\Users\Public\ is Read-only - so the game cannot save any files etc. in it.

Remove the read-only, and also give your account permission, by right clicking on C:\Users\Public\Documents and select the tab "Security" - then give all users permission to perform all types of actions. By doing this, you enable the game to save stuff... Useful

After that the game runs just fine, the FPS is at the highest at the highest possible graphic settings etc.

Playing games made for XP without any thought on Vista, indeed makes them work on Vista a pain in the arse. But i will not change my operating system because some jerks are too short sighted to even consider making it work on the latest system as well.

Just in case some Vista users want to play the game, like me. Oh, and its Vista 64bit btw, so no problems with running it on a 64bit system here.

This is exactly the sort of thing that made me uninstall Vista, then buy an iMac and dual boot it with XP. Vista killed the PC for me.

They really didn't need to change the directory structure like that. I used to sell PC's in my uni job (at John Lewis) and people always always had problems learning how to use Vista when they hardly knew how to use XP.

I had the same issue with buying games from Steam when running vista. You had to make steam run as admin before it would let you use the "Purchase" button. They may have changed that since i moved away to Mac tho.

When I eventually get a new machine, I intend to have a dual boot with XP and Vista.

Not because I'm some sort of luddite who doesnt want to move on to the future, but because I want my past apps to run as well. You forget that the vast majority of software isnt exactly supported all that well, and so might not work on Vista or at the very least not in the way its supposed to.

I agree that the developers of STALKER should have considered and implemented Vista compatibility, but then they are only half to blame. The other half lies with Microsoft and it's incessant need to change everything all the time. Games for Windows is a step in the right direction, it brings some common standards, but they shouldnt forget that previous releases don't have this cross OS compatibility.

Well, STALKER is partly to blame here, because they did not follow the standards for data storage outlined by Microsoft. If the standard is followed, it will work on XP as well as Vista without any problem, as is the case with most of the game. STALKER is simply being lazy, hence its probably not a very long manual that covers storage on the MSDN page.

Also, applications needing Administration rights is also only partly Vistas fault - in theory, no application should have Administration privileges, and all programs should be able to function fine without it. It's simply a huge security breach to have applications with Administrations right, as they can do serious harm to the system without Vista being able to restrict them in any way. Again, its developers being lazy not to follow the standards Microsoft have laid out for security.

The whole point boils down to: Lazy programming. What might work in XP, doesn't necessarily work in other place - but if they put in some extra effort to do is by the book, there would be a good chance it could. Developers take a lot of shortcuts though, and i guess its hard to iron those out later when your application is finished and filling thousands of lines of code.

However, this storage issue is not new to Vista - XP for example had a even bigger folder structure difference than Windows 98. In Windows 98programs would simply save their data within their own folder, but Windows XP required programs to save data in Document And Settings. That made alot of Windows 98 games not work correctly on XP back then - remember? Same issue Ever repeating problem.

For example this MSDN page shows how to access the folder structure:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762494(VS.85).aspx

Perhaps STALKER hard coded the paths instead of asking Windows for them? Because if it did ask, it would have been given the correct one, not C:\Documents and Settings on my Vista system.

Anyway, new application will work on Vista most likely, and most old applications can work with some fiddling. I prefer to stay with the latest system, so for my taste I'll stick with Vista until the next Windows arrives In a year or two, Vista will probably be the normal system anyways, because when people buy new computers they will all come with Vista preinstalled - and people will adapt and get comfortable in the new system. Then when everyones comfortable, Windows 7 will come, and we'll have another go with the same problems hehe

Vista however do have some functionality that i think is good for the average user - its more secure. Unless everyone quickly disables Windows Defender, which is awesome in my opinion, there's potentially gonna be a lot less viruses and data theft. Applications cant install on their own, or run on their own without permission, and they cannot access data out of their confined areas - as with STALKER, its pretty much storing data a place an application was not meant to store data, hence all the trouble.

I'm far from any expert, but i think i got abit of a grasp on how things work luckily - then i can also fix stuff
But my goal is to become a game programmer, and I'll try to do things as intended so my applications work on any versions of windows At least my first application this semester at Uni worked on all versions of Windows as well as Linux, but admittedly, it was also pretty small hehe.

Bah the games worth the problems. >.>

Now gears on pc. That = a different matter all together.

Good post mate.

worked fine in Vista64 for me.. right of the disc Cant get oblivion to work though any ideas? Doesnt even want to autorun and doesnt like the installer.

As for Gears of War- the patch sorted out the crashes people were getting. Crashed just after the Epic logo for me, installed patch and now its working great- whether you like the controls or not Fragged