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Kings Quest VII - German - DOS - impossible?

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First post, by Rolling

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Looking for some oldschool Sierra nerds out there... 😉

I'm trying to get a DOS version of King's Quest VII with german language to work, but i'm kinda stuck in SCI limbo.

Some basics regarding the version differences of KQ7:
- 1.0/1.1 - very buggy, probably Win3.1 only
- 1.4 - a lot of the game recoded, patches fixed, Windows only
- 1.51 - more bugs fixed, a few parts/deaths removed, puzzles changed, Windows only
- 2.0 - definitive version (firecracker fug gixed) with SCI interpretor for Windows and DOS

One advantage the windows versions have is, that they use higher quality AVIs for cutscenes, while DOS uses RBTs, which are not as of high of quality.

Of course there were also international releases with different languages, but sadly only the english version 2.0 has been released as enhanced version. International releases are 1.4 or 1.51.

So what's my goal here? I have the german version 1.51 which only comes with an interpreter for Windows but i'ld love to get the german version running on DOS.

I can get the english version 2.0 to run fine without CD as described here. I tried copying the german RESOURCE.* and ALTRES.* files over the english version which results in an SCI-Error:

The attachment Screenshot 2026-05-30 173113.png is no longer available

I also tried it the other way around, installing the german version and then bringing the DOS interpreter from version 2.0 to the directory, but this results in same error.

There is a patch, which in theory updates KQ7 v1.4 or v1.51 releases to v 2.00b with the DOS interpreter, but it only seems to work for the english or spanish versions of the game. If i try running it with my german 1.51 it installs fine but i'll get this error on startup:

The attachment Screenshot 2026-05-30 174709.png is no longer available

Any ideas on how to proceed?

Last edited by Rolling on 2026-05-30, 17:07. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 3, by MagefromAntares

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Hi,

According to https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Sier … sions#SCI_Games King's Quest VII is using SCI21(Version:2.100.002) as an interpreter, that page lists the

2.100.002 	King's Quest VII [German, Windows Only release] 	1.51 	1994-11-17

German version as Windows only, it is possible that the game is only compatible with the Windows version of Sierra's Creative Interpreter. Also to note that this page lists version 1.4 without mentioning as Windows only, it might be simply an oversight, but it is possible that version 1.4 had also a DOS interpreter version, and that is a lot smaller version difference than between 1.51 and 2.00b, if that is the case then the interpreter bundled with 1.4 might be able to run the game, just a small possibility however unfortunately 🙁.

EDIT: Also note that the German version is in the SCI21 (early) category, while the 2.00b DOS version is in SCI21 (middle) category, the interpreter version is supposed to be the same, but the comment at the beginning suggest that the two games have different interpreter kernel function tables, which might explain the incompatibility.

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." - Dune

Reply 2 of 3, by Rolling

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I did some further testing with english 1.51 version, which also seems to use interpreter version 2.100.002 according to the list.

With this custom installer it actually works fine. It gets upgraded to 2.00b during installation and works with the provided DOS interpreter.

So i guess the question would be: What does this magical installer do, that works with the english and spanish 1.51 windows-only versions, but not with the german release of the same version level?

Reply 3 of 3, by MagefromAntares

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You might also want to post about this issue on https://sciprogramming.com/, while they primarily seem to focus on older versions of SCI, they are actually making new games using that interpreter, so it is possible that you can get some help quicker on the forum of that page. And I don't think there is a disadvantage of posting this issue to multiple avenues for help.

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." - Dune

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