This Program Requires DirectX7a! - DDraw error: 0x80004001

Question

I am trying to play a pretty old computer game on my laptop and it gives the error exactly as is written in the subject. I currently have Windows 10 64 bit OS with DirectX12 which should be backwards compatible. Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

DX7 games are hit and miss on Win10. If using the disk version, mostly miss, I believe.

Win10 does not include DX7. DX7 games that do run on Win10 would probably have the requisite DX7

file installed in the games main folder, so the game reads the file from there instead of System32.

I don't have any examples of DX7 games that do this, but have several DX9 games that do.

• Similarly, some sites such as Good old Games and Steam modify old games and include older 3D file types

such as glide3, 3Dfx, d3d and DX7/DX8 in the games folder.

Most of my retro games come from GOG, or Steam, including Grim Fandango (DX6) which ran on Win7 (disk version)

using a community built installer (that works on 64bit Windows), but it stopped running on Win10.

"with DirectX12 which should be backwards compatible"

DirectX does not work like that. It's not about compatibility between versions.

Games use specific DX files, and it's the game that chooses which DX file it requires.

Win10 has all files for DX9, 10, 11, and 12.

• The following is a list of the Direct X .dll's you will have when the files are up to date.

Go to the Windows / System 32 folder, (and SysWOW64 if you have 64bit).  

They are in alphabetical order and will start with d3dx9 - 24 > 43 . Then d3dx10 - 33 > 43 ,

d3dx11 - 42 > 43, and the one DX12 file - D3D12.dll.

There should also be - d3d9, d3d10 and d3d11 (among others).

These come before the D3Dcompilers-33>43+47.

• Win10 currently has only two d3d 12 files. One in System 32,and SysWOW64 .
• There are more DX files. Those above are  the graphics related Direct X  .dll's
• If your Win10 install does not have all of the files above it's likely due to it being a clean install, which

requires running the DirectX Web Installer to update DX.

( One of the great MS mysteries. Why,  since DX 9,10,11 have not had any new files created since June 2010,

did MS not include all of these files with Win10 ? )

Download DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer from Official Microsoft Download Center

• Another great MS mystery is why they still refer to DX9.0c on the Web Installer download page.

DX9.0c predates the DirectX Redist (June 2010) installer package, which includes the _41 > _43 files.

This and the Web installer will install any  'missing' DX10/11 files.

.

Answer 2

Try this microsoft link for Win 10 & DirectX

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/search/en-US/windows?query=Windows%2010%20DirectX%207a&refinement=1002#refinementChanges=60&pageNumber=1&showMore=false

Answer 3

Hi,

Did you check for any dxsetup in the game folder or redist folders normally games include those packs and setups now.

Maybe it needs some older DirectX7 components id recommend you to download the directx7 setup or search for dxsetup in the game folder and if present run the setup.

Hope this helped.

Answer 4

Thanks for the response. no dxsetup or redist in the game folder. Windows 10 will not install DirectX7. When I download and try to install it says it is incompatible with Windows 10. I've tried running the game in compatibility mode going all the way back to Windows 95 with no luck. Also tried messing with my graphics settings. The game runs in really low resolution, 800 x 600 I believe.