The density was so you could open it in Excel and contrast the versions more easily.
It's just my preference for the glorious layout of tables.

Surprised it didn't work. Didn't it work by itself?
Do you have a github?
I now have one, so I think it might be getting complex enough to collaborate there.

Well, let me *, it didn't work when I tried to pull the GUI out of it to put another one in it. It was just going to be more time consuming than to just keep going where I was.

I do have a github, I have a github repo for this even 🤣. And yes since I just had to add more xaml files to it., I'd say we're at repo levels of complexity.

See when I was reading your script, there were icons on the discs when you select them, and we're already parsing ini files; I figured I'd just bang that out real easy like. 🤣 Ya right. I'd largely been spared any serious side effects from WPF and PowerShell both trying to coerce types to convert at every possible opportunity. That was until I started converting the icon's to bitmaps because WPF doesn't just support icons as images like Forms does. When you convert the icon, it will bring in System.Drawing, and thats where it goes wrong.

I was binding the window to a pscustomobject with the theme colors, and that worked well before. But after a conversion from string to System.Drawing.Color becomes available, and its before System.Windows.Media.Color, all color strings become the wrong kind of Color. Which breaks all that binding. You can get around most of it by hand converting the types, but that didn't work on every control in all states. So I had to make my nice theme ini file into 4 XAML resource dictionary files. It had the benefit that I can style the buttons properly now, but I didn't wanna use XAML styles 🤣. Its touchy when there is no WPF Application running, you have to deal with it a certain way or it tries to merge nonexistent app resources and crashes. There is probably a way short of full XAML themes, but I didn't try all that hard. But now, there are icons. 😁

I'll push up what I did earlier and post a link in a bit, I'm in the middle of some other things.
In the meantime, I did add this grid view of the INI 🙂

GryBsh wrote on 2025-09-01, 19:40:

I couldn't get that code to do anything for me, so I went back to the script I already had that worked. But I get the gist of wh […]
Show full quote

I couldn't get that code to do anything for me, so I went back to the script I already had that worked. But I get the gist of what you were going for.
The attached is working at least with the Titanium trilogy, can select between multiple mounted/inserted editions, is driven by an INI file, and provides visual feedback of progress.
It also switches colors based on which game you install.

The INI structure isn't as dense, but its easier to read and parse.

Copy code to clipboard

1[Editions]
2"MECH2-MW2W-MechWarrior 2"=MW2W
3"MECH2-MW2A-MechWarrior 2"=MW2A
4"MECH2-MW2W95-MechWarrior 2"=MW2W
5"TIT-MW2W95-MW2 Titanium Edition"=TITMW2W95
6"TITAN_MW2-TITMW2W95-Titanium Trilogy"=TITMW2W95
7"GBLWIN95-GBW-Ghost Bear's Legacy"=GBW
8"GBL-GBLW95DOS-Ghost Bear's Legacy"=GBLW95DOS
9"TITAN_GBL-TITW95-Titanium Trilogy"=TITGBLW95
10"MERCS3DFX-MERCS3DFX-Mercenaries 3DFX"=mercs3dfx
11"MERCENARIES-MercsW95-Mercenaries"=MercsW95
12"Mercenaries-Mercs3DSW95-Mercenaries D3D"=Mercs3DSW95
13"TITAN_MERCS-TITMERW95-Mercenaries Titanium Edition"=TITMERW95
14"TITAN_MERCS-TITMERW95-Mercenaries"=TITMERW95
15"TITAN_MERCS-TITW95-Titanium Trilogy"=TITW95
16"BATL_GBL-BtpkW95-BattlePack"=BPGBL
17"BATL_MW2-BtpkW95-BattlePack"=BP31CC
18"TITAN_MW2-TITMW2W95-MW2 Titanium Edition"=TITMW2W95
19"TITAN_MW2-TITW95-Titanium Trilogy"=TITMW2W95
20
21; MechWarrior 2 - 31st Century Combat 3Dfx Edition
22[MW2A]
23cdexe=mech2.ex_
24origexe=mech2.exe
25renameexename=mech2.exe
26dxwicon=dxwmw2icon
27compatpatch=mech2startupfix.sdb
28shortcuticon=mech2.exe
29movehelp=false
30copycommonfiles=true
31copydirectplay=true
32copytitfixes=true
33copyfolders=Keating|smk|mek|giddi
34copyotherfolders=mech2
35copyfiles=skygnd.par|mw2shell.dll|*.txt|*.bwd|*w*32.dll|*w.dll|*.hlp|*.cfg|*.mw2|*.map|*.fts|*.gid|*.out|*.bak|mw2.*
36copy11mw2patch=false
37copy11gblpatch=false
38copy11merpatch=false
39copy3dfxpatch=true
40install=true
41delfiles=
42title=MechWarrior 2 - 31st Century Combat 3Dfx Edition
43id="{edb77b07-a4f5-44b1-95e3-dcfabeaf7ba5}" ; for the uninstaller
44
45...

I'm using the installer from this post on Win10 Home 22H2 and with two different versions of the game:

1. The original MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries USA DOS/WIN95 release. Installation process works fine, I can startup the game afterwards too. But it's always windowed no matter how I tweak dgVoodoo and I can't play missions. The M2.EXE doesn't start at all, I automatically lose every engagement.

2. Mercenaries 3Dfx Interactive Edition. Installation, again, works as intended, I can startup the game and play missions. But no matter how I tweak dgVoodoo, I always have black bars to the left and up above. The sound is also broken - can't hear footsteps and only some weapon sounds are present.

It seems that no matter the version, dgVoodoo doesn't work at all, I even tried to enable watermarks to see if it works, and none were present. I also can't delete both versions normally - uninstaller blinks once with PowerShell window and nothing happens. Had to clean registry manually.

Sorry for the delay. Can you try the script in this repo?

https://github.com/GryBsh/MW2Installer

Here is a link to just pull down the zip
https://github.com/GryBsh/MW2Installer/archiv … /heads/main.zip

Hello, when I launch Mechwarrior 2 Titanium Edition, the game freeze on the first menu:

Keyboard or mouse are inactive, all I can do is to kill the game.

Is it a known issue?

What method are you using to install the game? what OS? What hardware etc etc etc...

Hello everyone,
I've been following this thread for a while now, desperately trying to get the Windows 3DFX and D3D versions of this game to work (Mechwarrior 2 Platinum Trilogy) , without success, on Linux, using dgVoodoo, nGlide, DXVK, Proton etc...
I can not install game because installer is 16 bits, not supported by Wine, I saw your script in this thread but it is Windows Powershell only.
Then I used MechVM to install games but Wine did not play cinematics and freezed at first menu.
I tried a lot of things, I began to loose my hairs until...today I tried something new:
I installed Windows 98 with Dosbox-Pure, then the Titanium Trilogy version of the game, and...

The game is fully playable on my config, in D3D or 3DFX mode, and I can benefit Dosbox-Pure/Retroarch features like:
- save states
- use my Dualshock 4
- use a shader to reproduce old crt effect

I made a lot of tests, I tried Dosbox-Staging, Dosbox-x...but I obtained far best results for this game with Dosbox-Pure.
During my tests I t was impossible to use Dosbox-Staging to install Windows 98, it's the Dosbox version the less adapted for this task.
And Dosbox-x was not enough stable, not enough fast and at the end the game was not playable.
I even tried 86box but game was slow (could be a bad 86box config optimisation or bad config choices from my side).

I shared my results tests here in case it can help or interest someone.

My config:
Manjaro 25.0.6 Zetar
Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.15.7-1-MANJARO
Proc: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6600M
Drivers: Mesa 25.1.6
Resolution: 1920x1080
32 Go RAM
DE: Xfce4

I even tried 86box but game was slow (could be a bad 86box config optimisation or bad config choices from my side).

I tested other 86box parameters and finally I obtained very interesting result, Mechwarrior 2 Platinum Trilogy is playable in D3D or 3DFX mode.
My 86box parameters:

I still prefer to use Dosbox-Pure to play this game, because it emulates faster than 86box, is easier to use and has a lot of interesting features (save states, controller compatibility, crt shaders...).
But it's a serious solution to play this game.

The above posts are off topic. Running Mechwarrior in an emulator or VM is nothing new and in fact is ancient news.

See the op first post:
"A comprehensive guide to install and play MechWarrior 2 on new versions on Windows."
"This thread aims to make the legend game playable on a native Windows environment".

I'll leave it to the OP to decide if these posts are wanted here.

Oh sorry, I thought this thread was more global and open to other platforms.
Please do not delete my messages, could help others people to run this game.

legluondunet wrote on 2025-10-09, 22:21:

Hello, when I launch Mechwarrior 2 Titanium Edition, the game freeze on the first menu: […]
Show full quote

Hello, when I launch Mechwarrior 2 Titanium Edition, the game freeze on the first menu:

The attachment Capture d’écran_2025-10-10_00-04-43.png is no longer available

Keyboard or mouse are inactive, all I can do is to kill the game.

Is it a known issue?

I would recommend not going off topic about on running the game on VMs.

It's been quite some time I have responded to the thread as I didn't have physical access to the game nor the time to check things. This seems like an issue of the CPU scheduler settings that the game issues. By default the game is employed to use the IgnoreScheduler shims so it is likely the setting aren't working correctly.

The other case is the heap settings could ve causing issues. In any case can you specify what config or installer you are using?

Hello, thank you for your answer, but like the moderator said, I didn't ask help on the right place.
Then, after hours (days?) of tinkering and testing, I finally found a solution that totally satisfying me.

Emulation is a good solution to play in 2025 this old game in very satisfying conditions, on Linux and on Windows too.
Dosbox-Pure and 86box have made significant progress and are two mature projects for playing your old games.
With the power of today's PCs, you can achieve very good graphic quality at normal framerate.

But I respect the approach of this discussion thread which brings together very interesting technical information on this game.

Whatever solution you use, the most important thing is that you have fun playing Mechwarrior 2 in 2025!