X-Com Enemy Within Windows XP Fix

[ghostbear373]

For those of us dinosaurs still running XP and who used the windows XP workaround to play X-Com:Enemy Unknown, Enemy Within can be made to work by following the same steps as detailed in this post with a few addendums:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2964408

In order to get Enemy Within to work in the same way, make a second copy of "zernel32.dll" and "fileextd.dll" (which you downloaded to get enemy unknown working) and place them in the following folder.

Steam\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\Binaries\Win32

Then, use the hexeditor which you used to edit "kernel32.dll" into "zernel32.dll" the same way you did for enemy unknown except this time modify the file "XComEW.exe", which can be found in the same folder as above, again replacing all instances of "kernel32.dll" with "zernel32.dll".

Note: One instance of "kernel32.dll" in the hexcode that you will find is capitalized, I don't actually code so I don't know if there's any significance to that, but I found that when you come to that one simply replacing the capital K with a capital Z will work fine. It may be unecessary for all I know, but I didn't bother to find out as doing this will work.

[MishraRUS]

Этот хак хорошо сработал у меня с оргинальной версией игры, но когда я проделал те же манипуляции после выхода дополнения, то ничего не заработало...

[DerKanis]

This method does not work for additions to the WINXP XEW. An error XCOMLauncher.exe. Previously worked perfectly for the original game.
(Этот способ не работает для дополнения XEW на WINХP. Возникает ошибка XCOMLauncher.exe. Раньше прекрасно работал для оригинальной игры.)

[swaruna]

Работает всё прекрасно. Есть одинь нюанс. Русский язык надо переключить на английский. Т.о. работает только с английской версией.

[Father Christmas]

just to confirm enemy within does work on windows xp (I really must get round to upgrading lol) with this fix. I did have to go back and change original xcom unkown exe again though but very pleased it worked :)

[spacealf]

Windows XP End of Life is April 2014. No more support from Micosoft.


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help

April 8, 2014

Just before taxes due.

[paganize]

Originally posted by spacealf:

Windows XP End of Life is April 2014. No more support from Micosoft.

So? 3rd party AV, never use IE. "support" is overrated.

Anyway,the last patch, as usual, broke XCOM. either stay in offline mode, or re-apply the Zernel patch, which still works fine. It also apparently broke the long war mod...?

[Father Christmas]

I should be upgrading to a new computer very soon but wil be sad to lose xp. I just bet there wil be quite a few games that wil give me problems on windows 7 but work fine on xp

[margalus]

Originally posted by Dave:

I should be upgrading to a new computer very soon but wil be sad to lose xp. I just bet there wil be quite a few games that wil give me problems on windows 7 but work fine on xp

actually, 7 will give you less problems probably.

[Father Christmas]

had to go with windows 8.1 (they removed option buy windows 7)...god help me :(

[jeffy]

dont use xp LOL TAHTS ancinet techonology

wat kind a chip you got in their ?? a dorito?

[Father Christmas]

well there you go I was right got windows 8.1 and its a pain in the butt with my games so far (haven't tried xcom yet though). windows xp RIP :(

[paganize]

Originally posted by Princess fluffykins:

well there you go I was right got windows 8.1 and its a pain in the butt with my games so far (haven't tried xcom yet though). windows xp RIP :(

Sorry for your loss. You CAN dual boot Windows XP (and you can still get licenses on ebay and other places) and Windows 80-ways-to-do-things-less-efficiently edition.

[gobZ]

windows 8.1 is actually pretty decent these days tbh, on idle windows 7 system used around 40% of my ram, windows 8 its around 20%.no issues with games or drivers or anything, but anyway this is offtopic hope the OP helped someone :)

[paganize]

Just fired up Long War mod beta 7 on a vanilla (but hacked for XP) install; did not require any additional Kernel/Zernel replacement. It did crash twice on loading, when the readme for the mod says it will only crash once when doing the first load.
I haven't been brave enough to try it on anything but offline mode yet, so that could be a problem.
and, for the inevitable: april 2014 OS Marketshare Win7 49.27% WinXP 26.29% Win8 12.1% Vista 2.9% Mac/Linux/Other 9.31%

[Old Ben]

X-COM is basically the only reason I finally upgraded from XP to Win 7-64bit six month ago. I set up a dual boot system so I can still use XP when needed for older games that Win 7 won't run.