Hi there,

I've been trying to get Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries to run on WinXP. The target machine is a IBM Thinkpad T40 laptop running XP Pro SP2.

The game CD packs both the windoze and DOS versions of the game. Version number imprinted on the CD is 1.05. I bought the game (on a businesstrip to Seattle) late 1997, or early 1998, can't remeber for sure. It might have been in a pack which contained MW2, and Ghost Bear legacy. Or it might not. As I mentioned, I can't remember...

I got the game running on this laptop with these steps:
1. Installed it, obviously.
2. Created a command.com shortcut into the game directory. (I assume the readers know what this means.)
3. Downloaded dos32a from (http://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html).
4. Copied dos32a.exe to be dos4gw.exe in the game directory, and SND-subdirectory within the game directory.
5. Downloaded and installed VDMSound. Copied dosdrv.exe into the game directory.
6. Started the command.com shortcut mentioned earlier.
7. CD to game directory, run DOSDRV, CD to SND-subdir, run SETSOUND there, CD back to game directory, launch MERCS.
8. Play.

Here's the funky part:
1. Select Instant Action, play it for a while, and Flee to DOS from there.
2. Rename MW2SHELL.DLL into something else, e.g. MW2SHELL.DYNLIB.
3. Set MERCSWIN's compatibility-mode into Win95.
4. Start MERCSWIN.
5. Boom: you're running Windows-version of the same Instant Action mission that the DOS-version was playing.

So what? someone asks. Well, me begunst thinking...

It's not the simulation MERCSW.DLL that doesn't like the modern Windows, it's the story-containing shell, MW2SHELL.DLL. I did some snooping around with a proficient debugger, and noticed that MERCSWIN.EXE is nothing but a front-end that creates an application window (window class 'Mercenaries', window title 'Mercenaries') with a menu bar, then hands things over to MW2SHELL's ShellMain(), and ShellWindowProc() functions.

a) Could the shell be cracked to easen up on the system checks, to let it run? As I said I've done some snooping around in this DLL, but if someone in this forum is more familiar with the subject, I would appreciate some help, or pointers. The reason: there would be no need for any external apps after installing the game. Well, apart from the cracked shell, but no dos32a, dosbox, dosdrv, mouse2kv, whatnot people seem to be using...

z) Apparently, the shell creates the initial settings for the simulator (number of mechs, the nature around, etc.), simulator takes control of the data, and after the mission, returns the data to the shell. Wouldn't it be nice to crack this data transfer mechanism. Then people could build storyline mods...