Kill non-Microsoft background processes on your system one by one until you figure out which one interferes with the InstallShield installer.

Run the installer, close it out it in Task Manager, and quickly open it back up (within like 3 seconds or so). If this is what I think it is, then it's just Microsoft enforcing their ludicrous security measures.

Did you by chance buy the game used? Someone likely snagged the key from the eBay photos, or redeemed it back when Steam was new. You really shouldn't buy any of the GoldSource games used for that reason, unless you just want the original WON release of the game.

Start the installer, then the Resource Monitor, find setup.exe in the process list, right-click on it and select Analyze Wait Chain... That will tell you which process is it waiting on; you must kill it.

PS: I have GOTY Edition with installer SETUP.EXE dated 1st October 2001. The game itself is at version 1.1.0.8. The installer doesn't have this issue, it's Wise Installer rather than InstallShield. So there are different versions of GOTY Edition out there?

The installer on my copy of HL works absolutely fine on 7 x64..... and it IS Installshield-based.

(HL GOTY should be 1.0.0.9 from Sep 1999 at the latest fyi.)

One ad on Amazon also says that this is the version needed for certain mods to run. It mentions They Hunger and this one needs at least 1.1.0.0 to run. The latest official patch for the WON version is 1.1.1.0. So it looks like there are different versions out there.

Anyway, regarding InstallShield problem, it has nothing to do with Windows version. It just doesn't work for some people because they have a misbehaving program running in the background that doesn't respond to the window message that is broadcasted by InstallShield to all windows on the system by the means of SendMessage API function.

Oh yeah, you can reproduce the problem with InstallShield easily on your own. Get Process Hacker 2, start Notepad, then use Process Hacker to suspend notepad.exe. You can suspend most Win32 applications that have any sort of window, including invisible ones and you'll see what happens.

Hmm, I dig my old CD of Half-Life, and even though its older then your GOTY (version 1.0.0.9), I was able to install it and also run it on my Windows 10 64-bit without issues.

But, I have a similar problem like you with original Unreal CD, and I solved it just by running that installer on my virtual Windows 98 machine. Once it finished, I just copy installed files from there to my main system.

Unreal doesn't really need an install though. One could just copy the folders directly from disc and run it from there...

Yeah, I found that later, when I compared content of game dir with content of CD. But with this method I'm almost certain, that Cobra! would be able to install his copy of HL GOTY.

Nope. It's all in a cab.

No, I mean installing in either virtual machine or real retro Win98 machine.

leileilol wrote:

Unreal doesn't really need an install though. One could just copy the folders directly from disc and run it from there...

Does that work for the Gold edition?

Rekrul wrote:

Does that work for the Gold edition?

Yes.

What else was I supposed to do back when I was in school? 🤣

I could install my Half Life 1 retail relatively trouble-free recently on WIndows 10 64, but for recognizing the disk I had to update to 1.1.1.2. There I stayed.

Runs fine, but I have this bug now that the screen stays black when I return from game environment to menu.

This is not a devastating blow for gameplay, as you can easily just press the Windows key, activating the task bar, and repress it - and menu shows up again.

Still annoying, though. Does anyone know this problem and hopefully even a workaround for it? Most support site only care about steam versions nowadays...

HL's old menu system was notoriously buggy even on Win9x. There are no fixes besides getting Steam and playing their updated Half-Life on that platform as that has a new, bit more bulletproof menu system.

Ok. Does the Steam vs. still look the same, though? With the sierra intro, the yellow on black fonts etc.?

I can be an awful pedant about these things, sorry.

Nah they dumped that all for a gray on black scheme plus green windows (to match the Steam interface they had pre-2005)

Thought so, grrrr.