windows 10 and games - particularly rise of nations

EDIT: I must have still been writing when tdug posted, and I have not actually tried installing any games

to Win10 . I am still using the same installs from Win7 (with close to 200 games installed I am not amenable

to doing the old fashion reformat and clean install of Windows of any version).

However, you were able to install the game, so regardless of if these old forms of DRM are being blocked

by MS,or not, the following may help.

(If Win10  is blocking the old DRM, Win10 will never be the 'best Windows for gaming, ever'. )

"at end was asked to reboot"

The original Rise of Nations was released in '03 and should not have a DRM problem (EDIT: unless it is true that

Win10 is blocking various forms of DRM), but the version from '06 may have one of the nasty DRM that were not compatible with 64bit OS's (including Win7 and  XP).

These were most common with games released between '04-'06.

Games don't often ask you to reboot, so that may be an indication this game uses one of these DRM versions

(Starforce, SecureROM and Tages were all notorious), so dodgy DRM is worth exploring.

Fortunately, while these evil forms of DRM caused lots of issues for legitimate owners, they didn't stop the

hackers, and you can get a noCD fix which bypasses the DRM.

• noCD's are a legal grey area, but it's only fair that someone who bought a legitimate version of a game

should be able get around obstructive copy protection.

• Install the games patch first, and if the game still does not launch download the appropriate noCD.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=9965&wa=wsignin1.0

I've just had a look at the noCD for patch version 1.03 and it is a simple .exe replacement.

I usually make a new sub-folder in the directory that contains the games executable  (nations.exe ) and move the original to that folder for backup.

I then move the extracted  noCD  nations.exe to that directory.

Make a new shortcut from the noCD  nations.exe and you should be good to go.

http://megagames.com/games/rise-nations

Note that your Anti-virus may flag the noCD as a Trojan or similar. I have over 100 noCD's (I am legit, but hate

using the disks) and the few noCD fixes that have been flagged have been false positives.

The reason for the flagging is a noCD works similar to a Trojan in circumventing the DRM, and the AV picks up

on that activity. It's not seeing a known evil.

• Another option... If you are installing the game to the default location - Program Files (X86) - try installing to

another location. If you have only the one  partition you can make a new folder in C:\ and install there.

This method circumvents occasional permissions issues that happen when installing to any of the three

protected 'Programs' folders.

• If the options above don't help, then it looks like Win10 is successfully blocking old DRM.

There are many people still playing older games who will be very unhappy campers if this is true.

Win10 as a gaming platform will then fail.

• EDIT: In the event of Windows blocking unsigned drivers you can disable that feature -

how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/

tells me game not compatible :(

graphics driver up to date

I don't know it is the case with RON, but all the games (DVD versions) protected by secdrv.sys and analogues just can't run on W10.

These drivers are no longer accepted by Microsoft.

But not a word of caution before updating...

Thank you Microsoft !

I don't have any suggestions at the moment, but don't trust the Compatibility center.

It was flawed with Win7 and you can bet a lot of games will similarly be miss-classified with Win10.

Do a search for problems installing the game, and any that applied to Win7 should also apply to Win10,

with maybe some new twist :) .

Is this the original retail disk version of Rise of Nations, or a re-release 'Extended version' from Steam,

or similar download ?

"...- restarted as usual but game won't play :( "

Could you clarify this ? Was their a prompt to reboot, or did you re-launch the game after setting up

the game options ?

.

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

I would suggest you first check the compatibility of the game with Windows 10 in Windows Compatibility Center and then install the game.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/Home

I would also suggest you update your Graphics Card drivers.

Kindly follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Press Windows key + R key to open run command. Type "devmgmt.msc" and click enter.
2. Expand Display Adapter
3. Right-click on the Graphics Card and select properties.
4. Go to the Driver Tab and click update.
5. Restart the computer and check.

Hope this helps. Please respond if you have further related queries.

Regards,

Jesinta Rozario