Final Fantasy VII PC on Windows 2000 SP4

Well, I dusted off my old copy of Final Fantasy VII for PC on a whim early this week. Mainly cause I was impressed with all the fan based patches that were coming out for it. I was flabbergasted by the lack of support for windows 2000 SP4. Not to mention that there's conflicting opinions about what patches to use; what makes playability better etc. What Annoys the hell out of me is that to finally make it work under windows 2k you need Micro$oft's Application Compatibility Toolkit V3.0; not surprisingly enough you can't find it simply anywhere... (wouldn't want people to get the idea that they don't need to upgrade to window$ vi$ta would we..) Well after googleing around much of the known universe I managed to find a copy. Then it was a simple matter of patching the hell out of the game to make it work. Since there's a lot out there and it's a popular TFH starter, i will refrain from telling exactly which patches I used. Suffice to say theres quite a bit of information floating around out there and you can decide for yourself what you would like to run.

Here's the ACT (Application Compatibly Toolkit) settings

Start the ACT Compatibility Administrator Tool - hit fix, Enter Name and Publisher (FF7//Squaresoft and browse to the ff7.exe Hit next. Select None, hit next, enable: Shrinker, EmulateWriteFile,Virtual Registry. Hit Next. SelectAll and then finish. Run should do it now! (thanks to: http://www.ffseven.com/faq.php).

After that you might want to save the database... I don't know if you have to but it worked for me. From here on out you can run FF7.exe by clicking on it and it will work. I don't know about the High Res Patch or the Sound Replacement projects I will be trying those later.

Usefull Links:
This is were the settings for the ACT came from.
Get All (most of) the patches here

Files:

The_SaiNt_High_Res_FF7PC_Patcher.7z (I had problems with alot of the distributions out there ... this one works)
act30pkg.7z ~ managed to pull this off a Russian tech help site... heres the download without the Russian

OH AND ONE OTHER THING:

Stay away from the XP patch... it's a hack of 2 different fan patches and it was done without permission, it has also been known to cause problems with midi playback.

Vampire The Masqurade ~ Redemption (on windows 2000)

OK, here goes! The Activision web site says you have to use a replacement .ins (setup.7z below) file and copy the setup directory from the first disk to your hard drive. Go ahead and follow those directions. THEN, what you need to do is download the modded registry files below and run that. You should then be able to patch the game's files and go from there. PLEASE NOTE, you may have to edit the .reg file to your system settings in the notepad before installing it or the patch wont work AND the game won't run. Pay special attention to Drive letters... if you install to C:\ then leave it the way it is but for certain, unless your CD drive letter is E:, your gonna have to change that. YOU WILL RUN INTO A LARGE NUMBER OF ERRORS while installing, this is OK as far as I can tell you just click through them. The game runs splendidly at 1024x768 32bit color; with all the settings at there highest levels, on the presario 2100. Better than i remember it running on my first athalon (733mhz).

Files:
vtmreg.7z - Modded Registry file
setup.7z
VampirePatch.7z

Radion IGP 320M

Boy, and i thought getting my IDE cards working right under win2k would suck.

TURNS OUT... GART support is NOT included with the Compaq drivers for the Compaq presario 2100... Well you can download the drivers from ATI, and then install them... i would suggest you do that before you install the drivers... or you might have to reinstall the drivers ... lol anyways the Machine supports AGP, the drivers work in PCI mode but MUCH better when you can enable 4x agp. I have the omega 3.8.252 drivers installed (the newest version that works right) and the newest GART drivers from ATI.

Below is a modded GART driver... and the IGP 320M Omega Drivers.

rad_w2kxp_omega_38252.7z
Radion IGP 320M modded GART drivers.7z

Bash head Here X....

OK so it's 7:53 at night and I'm reinstalling the computer... YES AGAIN! I've had it with Vista, and everything it stands for! I'm putting win2k back on and it's staying till something else comes along that's WAY more reliable. I went to win2k with the laptop about a week ago and i found myself doing WAY more than i wanted to do with the lap top, and it's slower and has less memory!!! well, anyway enough about that rant, on to something more my style... I have a question. How come you have to Reboot windows 30 or 40 times to reinstall something.... and were not just talking windows 2000 but even vista, you make the slightest system change and BAM! your rebooting your machine. I just think Micro$oft has been in the operating system business with PCs since what, 1983? perhaps earlier... here we are 2007, and ... Please wait wile we reboot your computer because you made a two character change to this configuration file. WTF? anybody who's been around to the other side of the block knows you almost NEVER have to reboot a mac or a Linux box for that matter. So what gives? is it just laziness or, no competition that drives this. Micro$oft seems to be so good at stealing open source software and getting away with it *Ehehm... Qteee ... eh, cough cough* sorry just clearing my thought; perhaps they should steal a few software engineers from the other camp to show them how to write a kernel better, or better yet; take a stand, realize that there platform is out of date, and stop perpetuating compatibility with older platforms at the cost of performance, reliability and system security. But what do I know, I'm just a cable guy. See you all on the flip side.

taken a break to reinstall winblows...

well there you have it, I've managed to screw up another perfectly fine XP install, and like the bone headed fool I am i wiped clean the system partition (not the project partition, OggCConv is safe, without checking any hardware versions or anything! well that sux but can I bring my Compaq 2100 laptop back from the dead without begging Compaq for help? the answer is yes and since there is literally NO information on putting windows 2000 on this machine available on the web i thought I'd write a little tutorial here.

First thing's first, make sure you have drivers for Ethernet, and a good install media available. It helps to have SP4 and the security roll up on cd too before you start but dont say I didn't warn you if you decide to do these with the web based install, I haven't tried it... just not my style. NOW first off getting some key info... I had to download Everest home edition and profile the system to find out most of this stuff but here's the specs for key hardware drivers not available on the Compaq web site.

MY specific model is 2108us.... *(atholon)*

Ethernet: National Semiconductor DP83815 10/100 Fast Ethernet Controller
Sound: Uli/Ali M5451 AC-Link Controller Audio Device
Modem: Uli/Ali M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller (shows up as a pci device under device manager)

I was able to Google all of these drivers, I posted them all along with 7zip and the Everest Home Edition tool (freeware downloaded off of Major Geeks). See the bottom of this post.

EVERYTHING ELSE is available on the Compaq web site, I just downloaded the display drivers and the Intel power management stuff.

Install Win2k, basic settings, reconfigure to taste and then install SP4 and the roll up (if that's your style, there are some hard core SP3 users out there, I don't know if this guide will run as smoothly though I haven't tested it.) After all of that is done install the drivers i've uploaded and you should be good and well on your way to installing AVG, Adaware and Spybot SD... or whatever else you install next on a fresh install. Hope all this helps; here's the link to the files:

2108US - Win2K Drivers & Utilities.zip

2108US - Win2K Drivers & Utilities.7z