Easy workaround to play these games

[wanderica]

Like many of you, I became very frustrated at not being able to play these games via Steam. A fair bit of searching lead me to Sierra's website here:

http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/Patches-Updates-Games/KingsQuestUpdates.html#KQCollectionDB
(Note: For some reason, Sierra doesn't like hotlinking, so you may need to copy/paste)

1. Download the 2 files at the bottom

King's Quest Collection DOSBox Update (KQCollectionDBUpdate)

and

King's Quest VII DOS Movies (KQ7_DOS_Movies)

2. Follow the simple instructions listed on the webpage and begin playing all 7 of these old favorites.

It even converts KQ7 to the DOS version and has options to DL the DOS movies and audio tracks. The Steam launcher will no longer work, but the DOSBox updater will automatically create a desktop shortcut to all 7 games for easy access.

I hope you all don't have the headache I did with these games. Enjoy :)

[jwimz]

Thanks for the help! The games work great now!

[stealyourshiny]

Thank you!!

[EJade]

All games seem to work except for KQ7 for me. Every time I try to continue my game it tells me to please insert cd #0 then press any key. It won't even let me start a new game.

[wanderica]

Just a guess but it sounds like you may need to install the DOS video files. Since old DOS games were unable to utilize MPEG format, the game needs a different format video in order to play movies, otherwise it may want you to insert the CD in order to play the video (cutscene at the beginning).

VII is the only KQ game that has this issue I believe as the other 6 should already have the correct DOS video files installed.

I might try reapplying the patch, but this time there should be an option on the patch installer to download and apply DOS video files for KQVII. Just look for the check box. You could also try installing JUST the video files. They're available at the linked website as well.

This is the file you would be looking for:

King's Quest VII DOS Movies (KQ7_DOS_Movies)

If all else fails, then unfortunately a reinstall might be in order. I can't remember if this game saves to the Steam Cloud or not, but it should be easy enough to copy/paste your saved games folder to a backup if it doesn't.

GL with it. They're old games but there are easy solutions out there that don't require manually setting up DOSBox.

[cheshire.kat]

After installing the above, I now get the error "Failed to start game (missing executable)." Have you seen that before?

[wanderica]

Are you trying to start the game through Steam? If so, then there's your issue. Check your desktop, and you should find a new shortcut named "King's Quest Collection." Double clicking that should start your games.

[Stefneh]

Annoying that Steam couldn’t fix it themselves, i mean... we did pay money for this. But thank you none the less, much appreciated someone went through the trouble of actually making these playable AND let others know how to do the same.

[sgrumbles]

Originally posted by cheshire.kat:

After installing the above, I now get the error "Failed to start game (missing executable)." Have you seen that before?

Same thing happened to me. First of all, I had to uninstall the patch. When reinstalling, I had to click "no" when it prompted me to browse to find the DOSbox I wanted to use (same with something called skumm somethingorother). For some reason if I browsed to the proper DOSbox, it just deleted the DOSbox folder. Anyway, I let it run through the whole install again and it still gave me the error when I tried to use the desktop shortcut. Turns out there's now a new folder called "King's Quest Collection" within the existing KQ collection folder. I have to start the games from within that new folder now, but they do work.


Edit: also my saved games are now gone.

[german218]

great!

[Aselleus]

Yay, the games work perfectly - King's Quest 7 will start on my 64bit version of Windows 7 now! The only problem, as stated above by other people, is that they won't play via Steam ( the "Failed to start game (missing executable)" error appears).