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

12.100.002 	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.

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?

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.

I don't think even the later SCI games ever required 3D acceleration or any other APIs beyond what is available in Windows 3.x, or do they?

If they indeed don't, perhaps the Windows 3.x SCI executable of the game might run on the HX DOS extender. Has anybody tried that yet?

I tried using HX extender but the game crashes even earlier:

I also tried registering an account on sciprogramming.com but still waiting admins approval.

Should run in DOSBox, which supports Win 3.x.

Might be worth looking at the resource files to play spot the difference.
Obviously the German and English text will be different, but it's the rest that should be the same and obviously isn't.
I can't imagine they used a super complex database. It probably amounts to an array of strings someone could throw their brain at and sus out pretty quickly.

Can you post the 2 smallest equivalent ones? Ie small German and English of the same file.

Had no luck with sciprogramming.com, because sadly no one approved the creation of my account. 🙁

Spikey wrote on 2026-06-04, 06:48:

Should run in DOSBox, which supports Win 3.x.

I know, that it works with Win 3.X in DOSBox, because i successfully tried that, but i'm trying to get it to run on real hardware under DOS.

myne wrote on 2026-06-04, 07:25:

Can you post the 2 smallest equivalent ones? Ie small German and English of the same file.

I'm not quite sure, what that means. What should i post exactly? These are the resource files for both versions:

All of them (even the ones with same file size) differ quite a bit from each other. I suppose it could be a codepage thing, but i'm not sure, if there isn't more to it (version differences, etc.). I fear that all these RESOURCE files are deeply intertwined and it'ld probably need an absolute SCI crack to figure this out.

Rolling wrote on Yesterday, 07:25:

Had no luck with sciprogramming.com, because sadly no one approved the creation of my account. :( […]
Show full quote

Had no luck with sciprogramming.com, because sadly no one approved the creation of my account. 🙁

Spikey wrote on 2026-06-04, 06:48:

Should run in DOSBox, which supports Win 3.x.

I know, that it works with Win 3.X in DOSBox, because i successfully tried that, but i'm trying to get it to run on real hardware under DOS.

myne wrote on 2026-06-04, 07:25:

Can you post the 2 smallest equivalent ones? Ie small German and English of the same file.

I'm not quite sure, what that means. What should i post exactly? These are the resource files for both versions:

The attachment diff.png is no longer available

All of them (even the ones with same file size) differ quite a bit from each other. I suppose it could be a codepage thing, but i'm not sure, if there isn't more to it (version differences, etc.). I fear that all these RESOURCE files are deeply intertwined and it'ld probably need an absolute SCI crack to figure this out.

It is unfortunate that sciprogramming.com doesn't approved your registration, the only other community with the necessary skills to debug this that I know of is the ScummVM one(https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=King%27s_Quest_VII), you could try contacting them on their forums(https://forums.scummvm.org/), hopefully they will approve the forum registration there, one thing to note about them though is that they are mostly interested in getting the older adventure games running on their ScummVM engine and helping people to run on actual DOS is not their primary interest, so it is very possible that they will handle your request to help as low-priority, but now I cannot think of anyone else on the top of my head who are able to help with an issue that most likely needs a very in-depth knowledge of the SCI engine to debug.

Rolling wrote on Yesterday, 07:25:

Had no luck with sciprogramming.com, because sadly no one approved the creation of my account. :( […]
Show full quote

Had no luck with sciprogramming.com, because sadly no one approved the creation of my account. 🙁

Spikey wrote on 2026-06-04, 06:48:

Should run in DOSBox, which supports Win 3.x.

I know, that it works with Win 3.X in DOSBox, because i successfully tried that, but i'm trying to get it to run on real hardware under DOS.

myne wrote on 2026-06-04, 07:25:

Can you post the 2 smallest equivalent ones? Ie small German and English of the same file.

I'm not quite sure, what that means. What should i post exactly? These are the resource files for both versions:

The attachment diff.png is no longer available

All of them (even the ones with same file size) differ quite a bit from each other. I suppose it could be a codepage thing, but i'm not sure, if there isn't more to it (version differences, etc.). I fear that all these RESOURCE files are deeply intertwined and it'ld probably need an absolute SCI crack to figure this out.

I meant zip them, and attach them here.

Ah, sure, no problem. I took the two smallest ones (RESOURCE.MAP and RESOURCE.MDT) from both versions. Here you go:

100 25 00 01 ef 23 02 df 27 04 fb 2c 06 d7 41 07 ef 41 09 2b 42 0b 3d 42 10 73 42 11 f9 43 ff 15 49 f5 17 00 00  
200 25 00 01 c5 23 02 c7 27 04 e9 2c 06 c5 41 07 dd 41 09 19 42 0b 2b 42 10 61 42 11 e7 43 ff 09 49 df 16 00 00

Assumption: The headers are different already.
It's unlikely, but maybe swapping the eng header to the ger would work.
Usually there's other details like "this DB is X long"

I tried, but ended up with the same results, see first post.

https://www.akril15.com/kq7resources/KQ7resources.html
https://sciprogramming.com/scitools.php?id=2

seen that?

I've tried to use SCI Viewer to dig around in the RESOURCE files. Script 15 (see error message in first post) seems to be the logo, but the tool says it's identical in both versions.

I fear, that you'ld need to learn a lot of SCI related stuff, which i hate to say, but is probably above my head at the moment.

This is just dumb enough to work.
Try changing the language in the cfg file.
I personally suspect everything is in the resource.000

Good idea! Sadly, that won't change anything. Since the windows version doesn't have a RESOURCE.CFG, you have to take the file from an english release or download it from here.

It doesn't seem to matter if you set language=1 (english) or language=49 (german) or even omit the parameter at all.

I tried using all parameters from RESOURCE.WIN for RESOURCE.CFG, but that also won't change anything. The game seems to load at least until short before the logo when the "out of movable memory error" hits.