Medal Of Honor Allied Assault Spearhead And Breakthrough Expansion Packs Not Working On Windows 7-64 Bit

[ EDIT: 6/4/15 -

I recently bought the MOH-AA Warchest which includes the two expansions from GOG on sale

for a couple of dollars, and have no issues running either Breakout of Spearhead on Win7 64bit

with Nvidia graphics.

No compatibility settings required. No messing around with the .exe's required.

• However, when using Intel HD4000 Integrated Graphics, and presumably, any Integrated Graphics,

only the main game  works.

Breakthrough and Spearhead require renaming their .exe as per LordV's suggestion.

There are several options as to how you can deal with the re-named .exe's/shortcuts.

• I did not delete any expansion pack folders, as did RayC ]

(Original Post) ...

Nice trick....

I'm beginning to wonder if these expansions ever ran correctly. Seems like they weren't properly

integrated into the main game.

But it wouldn't be the first game to have an .exe conflict.

"What's the difference between:   MOHAA.EXE  MOH_SPEARHEAD.exe or MOH_breakthrough.exe?"

More maps and missions, which should mean you need the relevant .exe to play those missions.

With this game you also need the main title to play the expansions, so there is a link between

MOHAA main game and the expansions.

While the names of the .exe's were changed, the .exe file itself still has code linking it to the relevant expansions files, which is why those .exe's need to be used.

When I have a problem with an older game starting I generally go for a noCD fix.

I had the same problem in Windows 8.1 (64bits), I tried this, and truly; it WORKS!!! In order to play these expansion packs Spearhead and Breakthrough without renaming them, I copied the entire MEDAL directory twice, renamed one of them 'Spearhead', and the other 'Breakthrough'. In the new Spearhead dir I removed the folders/files that referred to Breakthrough (like the folder 'maintt', and the executables that had the name 'breakthrough' on it. The spearhead.exe file I then renamed to 'mohaa.exe'.

In the newly created 'Breakthrough' dir I  deleted the folder 'mainta' and the .exe files that referred to Spearhead. The 'breaktrough.exe' is renamed to 'mohaa.exe'.

From the folder 'medal' where allied assault and the 2 expansion packs resided, you can then delete the 'maintt' and mainta' folders, as well as the .exe prgs that refer to spearhead and breakthrough.

The folder 'main' (the one that 'belongs' to allied assault) must remain present in the main dir of 'medal', as well as in the newly created dirs 'spearhead' and 'breakthrough'

Don't forget to change the paths of the shortcuts!

The last question: why is a renaming of an .exe file necessary in order to be able to run an expansion pack?????? What's the difference between:   MOHAA.EXE

                                                                MOH_SPEARHEAD.exe or MOH_breakthrough.exe?

Good work.    This sort of experimenting goes a long way with PC games (unfortunately).

This workaround may also be useful for those who come to these forums with problems running

the Age of Empires 3 expansions.

Other options vs recycle bin ...

Make a new folder in the games main directory and move the main MOHAA.exe  to that when

not in use, or just add a couple of letters at the front, which should make it invalid.

( "a's " are good as the ,exe should pop to the top of the file list, making it easy to find when you

want to change it back ),

.

[ EDIT: 6/4/15 -

I recently bought the MOH-AA Warchest which includes the two expansions from GOG on sale

for a couple of dollars, and have no issues running either Breakout of Spearhead on Win7 64bit

with Nvidia graphics.

No compatibility settings required. No messing around with the .exe's required.

• However, when using Intel HD4000 Integrated Graphics, and presumably, any Integrated Graphics,

only the main game  works.

Breakthrough and Spearhead require renaming their .exe as per LordV's suggestion.

There are several options as to how you can deal with the re-named .exe's/shortcuts.

• I did not delete any expansion pack folders , as did RayC]

(Original Post) ...

Looks like you have already visited the relevant forums. I have MOH-AA, but don't have the

expansions.

For some reason the MOH 10th Anniversary edition also seems to have a problem with Win7,

while the individual original releases don't ( not always ;) ).

"This 3dfxgl.dll Thing..."

I see there is an voodogl.dll in the games directory. This would have been used by the old

Voodo graphics cards running 3dfx, so the 3dfxgl.dll is likely a library that was used by these cards.

[ The game will run fine on 'modern' graphics accelerators without either of these two files. I just

tried it with both Intel HD4000 and AMD HD7970 ]

• You mentioned the main game runs well until you install the expansion packs. Have you tried installing

only one or the other (to determine if it's both or only one of them causing problems) ?

• Have you tried disabling your Anti-Virus temporarily to verify it is not silently blocking the game ?
• If you have installed the games to the default location - Program Files (X86) try installing elsewhere

(Not Program Files or Program Data either).

A new folder in C:\ would be OK, but if you have another Partition or HDD try installing your games there.

• I believe installing using Compatibility for XP sp2 would have better chance of Compatibility working

(still very low, but better) than using the short-cut or MOHAA.exe in the games install folder.

To install using Compatibility set Compatibility on the games Setup.exe on the disk ( I assume you

are using retail disks ? ).

• There is a small possibility the expansion packs don't recognise your Intel HD graphics.

While is may not relate directly, I can run Bioshock 2 on Intel HD4000 but Bioshock 1 will not run.

• You could also try running in Clean Boot to troubleshoot potential Services or Startup

program conflicts -

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7