Shivers on XP?
 

I don't know if this has been asked before; I did a search of all the forums and couldn't find a similar thread so I open this one.

The problem is: I cannot install Shivers on my XP machine. When I first inserted the disc, the autorun started and asked me if I wanted to install the game. Of course I wanted to, why would I get the game? Anyway. I clicked through the usual installation screens even though I didn't understand them since they're in French (very odd - the game's language is German) and Shivers started to install. And then - the installation encountered some kind of error and broke off. I then set compatibility mode for the setup.exe to Win95 and tried to install the game again. Nothing happened. When I clicked "256colours", "run with 640x480" and "disable visual designs", the screen turned black for a second and then again - nothing. I have no idea what to try next; I know this game works on an XP machine and that others managed to install and play it. If anybody could help me with this, I'd be very grateful :)

System specs are: WinXP Home Edition SP2, P4 3GHz, 2 GB memory, NVidia GeForce 7300 (latest driver is installed), DVD-Rom. The game is the boxed version originally released for Win95/3.1. I've already considered downloading a virtual machine since I frequently have problems running older games on my computer - would that help?

Thanks in advance,
Jehane

Can't Shivers be installed as DOS too?
If so you can use DosBox...

EDIT:
Oops... replied too quick, didn't see the .
My bad :D

This site has some details regarding installing Shivers and other older games on XP.

http://home.earthlink.net/~angeldancer27/

Virtual Machine is very good for old adventures that don't run on DosBox however you will need to install an operating system on it. I installed Win 98SE and have been able to run various older games including, if memory serves, "Shivers". I also found it was the only way I could play "The X-files" without probems. Oh, and for the record this was on Win XP SP2.

Nick.

p.s. When I said virtual machine I actually meant virtual pc, which resides here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...c/default.mspx

Thanks guys, as it turned out I didn't need a virtual machine or any other programme to help me. It simply was my not-existing command of the French language that caused the problem. As I said in my first post, the installation screens are in French even though the game's language is German. Since I hardly know any French, I simply clicked on "Oui" everytime the programme prompted a question - that caused the installation to stop because it encountered a problem. After the third time, I saw that the error message included the word "test" in the blue bar above it. That was my clue: I remembered that old Sierra games run a system check before asking you whether you want to install it or not. So I went back to the very first screen, tried to read the French text there and decided the programme was asking me if I wanted to run a system check or not. So I clicked "Non"; the next screen came up with the results of the system check (which failed) and asked me if I wanted to install the game anyway - I clicked "Oui" and all of a sudden the game was installed on my computer. It seems that it's running fine without compatibility mode :)

ALWAYS skip the systems test with Sierra games.

I have Shivers running fine in XP, but the game always runs in a window. Is there a way to make the game play full-screen or is it impossible? I noticed the same thing when I got GK2 working on XP. Just wondering if there is a way to make these games play full screen or not. Thanks.

Set the resolution to 640x480 through compatibility mode. In the RESOURCE.WIN, set titleBar=false to hide the titlebar.

I was under the impression that Virtual PC would not run under Windows XP Home Edition (the version most people have) but only XP Professional. Is that wrong?

I have no way of testing. I have Pro and Media Center Edition. MCE is based on Pro. It does run on MCE. I'm sure that you would be able to find information on it on the VPC page at MS.

Running the game in compatibility mode with 640x480 doesn't seem to make a difference. The only way the screen will enlarge is if I lower my screen resolution, which only goes to 800x600 anyway, so the desktop is still visible.

On the display settings, click the "Advanced" button. Select the "Adapter" tab and click the "List All Modes" button.

Thanks, Collector!

Np

Best Full Screen method
 

I was googling for a way to make shivers fullscreen on newer PC's and I found this thread. Something on it gave me an idea and I found the best possible solution, better than any other i'd found for this game before. I know this thread is old, but it still comes up as a top result for google, so i'll post this for anyone else googling.

I much prefer this method because I hate changing my screen resolution just to play the game, and then changing it back afterwards. It messes up my icons.
As someone above mentioned, there's a file called "RESOURCE.WIN" inside your shivers folder. First, open it with a notepad and set 'titleBar =FALSE'

Next, look below that to find:

wwidth =640
wheight =480

if it's not there, add it in.

Change the values to your PC's resolution. In my case I changed it to:

wwidth =1280
wheight =800

save, and it's done! The one and only catch (there's always a catch) is that the videos such as the intro will appear in the topleft corner in 640x480. They are however, still very visible and watchable. Everything else in the game should be perfect though. Another tiny change is that the cursor appears smaller (the same size as your cursor on your desktop) than when it is set to 640x480. I personally find the change to my liking as it feels better and more precise.

Well then to anyone who I may have helped set their shivers to fullscreen, good luck and have fun.