I've done this for 2003 but haven't bothered for other versions of Windows since the amount of games affected AFAIK is so low.

I've beaten Unreal 2 on Win7......

swaaye wrote:

I've beaten Unreal 2 on Win7......

How? I can't even get past the menu before it crashes on me because of DirectMusic being stubbed...

Unreal 2 does work on Win 7 & 8.1. Maybe it's related to your sound card driver?

No because I'm having the same problem other's report with the intro crashing on them and various other parts in the game causing crashing and stuck behavior because of the DirectMusic issues.

I've been able to run this perfectly fine under Windows XP.

I've also beaten it on Windows 7.

DracoNihil wrote:

I refuse to turn to google for this one because I'm paranoid about modifying system files. Especially on a OS that get's mad at you when you attempt to do so.

Well you can keep that refusal up and never get the game running or you can try the saner approach of letting us go through the worries of replacing said system files:

• They're not critical files. The OS will function without them. If they cause problems you can recover them from the backup you will be making
• If you fail to make a backup, Windows has a function (sfc /scannow) specifically to restore system files
• If your system somehow becomes unbootable (unlikely) you usually have a recovery partition or a Windows 7 DVD that you can easily recover from using the above command
• There's a batch file in the comments that will do everything automatically eliminating the risk of you screwing up

I can't speak for everyone, but personally I'm not digging around for an alternate fix that only you need and that will benefit no one else.

Does the GoG version fix it at least?

The game page on GoG claims Vista/7/8 compatibility. So it should work, if not there's a 30 day guarantee

That's 10$ wasted though, when there is a free and perfectly safe patch available.

It also occurs to me that I've played it on Windows 8.1, on my Venue 8 Pro tablet. Not exactly typical Unreal 2 hardware there. Worked fine.

That was the Steam version but I used the CD version on Win7.

ZellSF wrote:

They're not critical files. The OS will function without them. If they cause problems you can recover them from the backup you will be making

They're "critical" in the sense that you have to practically change them from another OS and somehow make sure that the filesystem remains consistent and Windows doesn't realize the files don't match up with what it had previously.

ZellSF wrote:

I can't speak for everyone, but personally I'm not digging around for an alternate fix that only you need and that will benefit no one else.

I'm not the only person that had this problem you know. Why others are saying they're able to get the game working I'll never understand. This is a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate and my previous machine used a OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium and I never gotten the game working on either.

I would try getting it off Steam or GOG but I have zero money at hand for that and I have the CD's right here with me anyways. Unless I'm mistaken I even seen someone on GOG forums complain about the game crashing on the menu and various parts of the single player not executing properly because of the DirectMusic stubs.

I installed the Steam version and found that the intro doesn't work right as mentioned online. But the gameplay works alright. I honestly have beaten this game on Win7 x64. Maybe the music doesn't work quite perfectly and I didn't notice.

I am using OpenAL hardware. I would have played with an Audigy, X-Fi or X-Fi MB software.

I will experiment with the CD version sometime.

I've noticed V-Sync slows down level loading.

That's true for Daikatana too 😀 only incompetent programming can make loading screens that fake loading.

DracoNihil wrote:

I'm not the only person that had this problem you know. Why others are saying they're able to get the game working I'll never understand.

You're probably the only person with the problem who knows about a fix and refuses to do it despite me trying to go through all your worries about it.

You need to provide proper reasons why you can't run the fix, or it will never be improved.

Have you even tried steps 1-4 on the page you've surely found via Google? The steps that do not involve editing system files at all?

leileilol wrote:

That's true for Daikatana too 😀 only incompetent programming can make loading screens that fake loading.

Yes, but not for fanmade version 1.3. 😀

Worst slow loading offender: Deus Ex: Invisible War. Sadly, it's still slow with VSync turned off. 😢

leileilol wrote:

That's true for Daikatana too 😀 only incompetent programming can make loading screens that fake loading.

Not "incompetent"
Too much Windows pre-NT compliant.

You can see this really well in Unreal 2, using Win98Se and than switch to WinXP (back in the days).