Fixedit4u wrote on 2026-05-11, 19:09:

The story continues ... Today I got my hands on a third German version of the game. To summarize: […]
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The story continues ... Today I got my hands on a third German version of the game. To summarize:

• Version 1: CD in jewel case, copyright 1997, text "Sofies Welt" on the CD in orange and green, cover: 2 Greek philosophers, earth behind "Sofies Welt" (title in orange and green), inlay: for Win 3.11 and 95
• Version 2: CD in amaray case, copyright 2002, black text on reflective/silver CD - just text, cover: same as jewel case, just enhanced, back: for Win 95, 98, ME
• Version 3: 2 CDs in amaray case (1 for Win, 1 for Mac), copyright 2004, black text on reflective/silver CD - text and image of the cover, cover: person with hat and ladder, earth below "Sofies Welt" (title in yellow), back: for Win 98, ME, 2000, XP

What's on it and how to run on Win 11:

• Version 1: Needs updated SETUP.EXE from later versions 2 or 3 and official patch or updated APP32.EXE from version 3 to run on Win 11 - for SETUP.EXE and patch see my posts above
• Version 2: identical to version 1, except for the updated SETUP.EXE; needs official patch or updated APP32.EXE from version 3 to run on Win 11
• Version 3: identical to version 2, except for updated APP32.EXE and updated HELP\sophie.GID; runs out of the box, the updated APP32.EXE is identical to the APP32.EXE you get by applying the patch

Did you ran into any issue i had on a clean win 11 ?
I had to copy all files of CD to Hdd/ssd to make it work without the need of CD.

It's been a while that I tested it on a clean system. If I remember it correctly it was indeed clean and I had no issues installing it, using the right SETUP.EXE plus the patch. Both worked, installing it from CD and copying it to disk first.

I tested installing it on a fresh Windows 11 (25H2). Turns out not only Indeo 3 but also Cinepak codec is needed. These are normally already available but in the wrong place. The following script should fix this. Simply copy the script into a .bat and run as admin.

1@echo off
2setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
3
4net session >nul 2>&1
5if %errorLevel% neq 0 (
6    echo Please run this batch file as Administrator!
7    pause
8    exit /b
9)
10
11set "source_dir=C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-vcm-core-codecs_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.26100.1_none_0d77cdee889ef347"
12
13if not exist "%source_dir%" (
14    echo ERROR: The source folder in the WinSxS directory was not found.
15    echo Path does not exist: %source_dir%
16    pause
17    exit /b
18)
19
20for %%F in (iccvid.dll ir32_32.dll ir32_32original.dll) do (
21    if not exist "%source_dir%\%%F" (
22        echo ERROR: The file %%F is missing in the source folder.
23        pause
24        exit /b
25    )
26)
27
28takeown /f "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /a
29takeown /f "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /a
30takeown /f "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /a
31
32icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /grant administratoren:F >nul 2>&1
33icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /grant administrators:F >nul 2>&1
34icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /grant administratoren:F >nul 2>&1
35icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /grant administratoren:F >nul 2>&1
36icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /grant administrators:F >nul 2>&1
37icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /grant administrators:F >nul 2>&1
38
39copy /Y "%source_dir%\iccvid.dll" "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\"
40copy /Y "%source_dir%\ir32_32.dll" "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\"
41copy /Y "%source_dir%\ir32_32original.dll" "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\"
42
43icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" /c
44icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" /c
45icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" /c
46
47icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /remove administratoren >nul 2>&1
48icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iccvid.dll" /remove administrators >nul 2>&1
49icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /remove administratoren >nul 2>&1
50icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /remove administratoren >nul 2>&1
51icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32.dll" /remove administrators >nul 2>&1
52icacls "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir32_32original.dll" /remove administrators >nul 2>&1
53
54echo Operation completed successfully. In case 3 files were copied, everything should be fine. Don't worry in case the system did not find a file specified. We were looking for possibly already existing files in the beginning.
55pause

It worked after this?

Yes it does.

Keep in mind, you need an updated APP32.EXE and SETUP.EXE, which are both readily available on CDs that have "Win XP" written on the CD case as part of the system requirements (that is, CDs with a copyright of 2004 and onwards, it seems).

For newcomers: If you have an older CD, have a look at the whole thread for possibilities to patch your EXEs. Other than that, after the installation you need to go to the program folder, right-click on APP32.EXE, click properties, compatibility, and set "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" to "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)". That's it, it should run flawlessly.