Could be a lot of things.
could you post any info about your system? Mainly the OS your running.

Two things to try, Run as admin and compatibility mode.

First guess is that it's one of those installers that need to get a signal from every window before proceeding. Usually they'll do nothing if a background process is misbehaving. So open task manager and kill all background processes that don't belong to Windows itself.

I'm not sure it's one of those installers, but I'm not downloading the game to test.

Are you clicking on an autorun menu (that pops up when you insert or mount the CD)? If so, you might have better luck browsing to the folder and running the setup file directly. Also, sometimes, the setup file just launches a different setup file (ex. SETUP.EXE might just be a launcher for \SETUP\SETUP.exe), so look around and try running various executables that look like they might be installers.

What's the Limited Edition? I've got the regular PC one! Is it this Sony thing? https://archive.org/details/SonyProRally2001LimitedEdition

Anyway, to get it to install you need the "P4 installer" (which is REALLY hard to find these days, I located it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20040307103438/ht … 0Rally%20P4.exe), the 1.1 patch (https://www.fileplanet.com/55022/download/Pro … ally-2001-Patch) and the updated prorally.exe file from Zeus (fixes issue where game won't finish loading due to modern processors not being recognised) http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide/compatibility

That Sony Limited Edition seems to only have 3 locations and about the same number of cars, so it looks more like a fancy demo. The installer, patch and Zeus update might not work for that version 😒

Right, I had a play with the Sony Limited Edition iso on the link above. It's just a demo so there's no need to remove the link anyone!

It basically contains 3 cars and 3 tracks, but one car is a "Sony" car (not sure entirely what it's based on, looks a bit like a Peugeot/Citroen but remodelled a bit), and many of the advertising hoardings now advertise Sony CD-Rs!

Here's how I got it working:

0. I already have nGlide 3Dfx Glide wrapper installed, FYI. [update: you can use dgVoodoo2's MS files instead in the game's folder]
1. Downloaded that iso above, then mounted it in Windows 10 (you could burn it to CDR, or use your own CD if you have a copy).
2. Ran setup.exe to install it; I had no issue here on Win10 64bit; you could try some application compatibility modes perhaps.
3. The version on the iso above already has patch 1.1 applied, so no need for that.
4. I went into the game folder (not using the shortcut on the desktop!) and set Win98 compatibility to RallySetup.exe and RallySetupSound.exe, then opened both and configured them. Note: you can only use DirectX7 options if you use dgVoodoo2's MS files.
5. I had to copy over the fixed ProRally.exe from my actual copy, which comes from the Zeus site listed above. This dodges the lock-up-when-loading-a-stage bug (where it can't identify your CPU).
6. All works! HOWEVER: if using 3Dfx Glide option, don't set in-game resolution higher than 1280x1024 (1600x1200 crashed when starting a stage for me); instead use nGlide to tweak resolution. With dgVoodoo2/DirectX7 option, 1600x1200 works fine, as does 32bit rendering.

Hope you manage to get somewhere with it, although getting the full game is advised, as it has a lot more in it!

Two more points:
1. Uninstall seems to only part uninstall :-p
2. Game crashes (freezes) when exiting often, need to use Ctrl+Alt+Del, load Task Manager, type "pro" then tab 3 times and press space (selects End Task heh)
3. LE version won't clash with full game, if you want to install both!

I tried ProRally.exe from Zeus, but it still hangs at the loading screen. CPU is AMD Phenom II X4 920.

Try pinging Zeus a message; I suspect he did a workaround that skips the processor detection, which works on Intel, but not sure about AMD.

I made my own patch bypassing CPUID queries that works with all processors. Why does it care about L1 and L2 caches? Zeus' patch doesn't bypass anything, it just makes function querying vendor string always return AuthenticAMD, so no practical difference for AMD CPUs. I NOPed out entire function dealing with CPUID queries. There are a lot CPUID instructions in the code, majority seems like unused code. There's even a branch that would execute privileged instructions, with a check to only do it on Win9x. Doesn't Win9x just silently ignore privileged instruction exceptions?

I also fixed the bug that prevented Direct3D mode from working with a lot of video RAM. It can easily be reproduced with dgVoodoo2. Set onboard RAM to 512 MB and it works, set it to 1024 MB and it exits with an odd error in the log file. I think it uses a magic value of 999,99 MB when processing data files to tell when to break out of some loop. The value is compared against video RAM amount and when there is more than 999,99 MB, the condition to break out of the loop no longer applies.

The game also has checks that make it fallback from DirectSound to WaveOut if it detects NT based Windows system. It doesn't utilize any special DirectSound features by default, need to open .\dll\sound\Snd_cpa.ini and under [DLL_Sxd] set Unconditionnal setting from None to WAVd3 to enable 3D sound. This requires Creative ALchemy on Vista+. I'm using Win98VersionLie and SingleProcAffinity shims from Compatibility Administrator for ProRally.exe, for RallySetup.exe and RallySetupSound.exe I also applied RunAsInvoker shim to stop them from asking for administrative rights; Windows' Compatibility Engine treats them as installers due to presence of word "setup" in file properties/resources.

SingleProcAffinity appears to prevent hang when exiting via menu (another case of multithreading went wrong with multiple CPUs), I haven't played for extended period of time; it never hung on exit on my previous PC with single-core Celeron CPU and GeForce4 MX 440 GPU running Windows XP, Alt + F4 still hangs. I settled with running the game in Direct3D mode via dgVoodoo2, forcing resolution to 1440x1080, the maximum 4:3 resolution on 1920x1080 monitor. By leaving in-game resolution set to 640x480, the transitions from menu to gameplay are smooth. Also have Scaling mode in dgVoodoo2 set to Stretched, keep Aspect Ratio, which ensures the physical monitor resolution is never changed.

Forgot to mention; on Windows 8+, DirectPlay must be installed for game to launch (Control Panel->Programs and Features->Turn Windows features on or off->Legacy Components->DirectPlay).

Edit: updated DirectSound information.

Do you see any car models in the menus? They use a no-longer supported video codec. Good to know the crash-on-exit is fixed by SingleProcAffinity.

Intel Indeo codec is still included with modern Windows versions, just not registered. Open Command Prompt as admin, navigate to %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64 (if on 64-bit Windows) and run:

regsvr32 ir50_32.dll

For 32-bit Windows, SysWOW64 should be System32.

UCyborg wrote:

Intel Indeo codec is still included with modern Windows versions, just not registered. Open Command Prompt as admin, navigate to %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64 (if on 64-bit Windows) and run:

regsvr32 ir50_32.dll

For 32-bit Windows, SysWOW64 should be System32.

Cool, thanks, that worked.

A little bump here: anyone got the Controls menu to actually remember your settings? I tried compatibility modes, but they're just forgotten. And trying a games controller (Xbox360 pad or G27 wheel) crashes the game as soon as you go to redefine any control.

I got the same problem as you VirtuaIceMan. I have a xbox 360 controller and it just crashes every time. I've tried some options with dxwnd but no luck. I've even tried to start the game without the controller plugged in and then plug it in when to map the buttons. But that didn't work either. (It didn't register when I pressed the buttons.) If there's a fix for this out there somewhere it would be great.