Since the welcome defeat of Windows 98, my first game as lead designer and writer – Discworld Noir – has been virtually impossible to run. Until now! Friend of ihobo, Adam Sirrelle, has this video and text description of how to cajole the game into running. Hope it's helpful!

• "How to Run Discworld Noir" video link

Step-by-step Instructions

Step 1: Install the Full installation of the game to a folder on the C: drive.

FreebirthOne says to copy the contents of Folder CD3 to CD1, but I found there were no files in there on my version, so I ignored this

Download the fix file and the no cd, if you want that, from this site: http://m0005.gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_discworld_noir.shtml

Replace the original TIN_DXD.EXE file with the fixed exe from the download, and bring the no cd patch across to the noir folder and run it.

Right click the new TIN_DXD.EXE, select "Properties" and go to the "Compatibility" tab, the check "Run this program as administrator".

Step 2: Download winexp from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/winexp.html and extract it somewhere

This helps to play in a fake fullscreen as most of the crashes happen due to the game being in fullscreen mode.

Step 3: I haven't done this as the cursor doesn't bother me that much, but it is a good idea as the mouse cursor will move at a different speed to the game cursor due to the resolution size not being exact.

• download the "tinycursors" cursor from http://www.rdpslides.com/tinycursors.zip and extract the "nothing.cur" somewhere
• open the "mouse"applet in the ctrol panel and navigate to the pointers tab
• here click on "Browse" on the lower right, navigate to the folder you extracted the nothing.cur to, and double-click on it
• now click on "save as" in the upper left and give it a good name, like "hidden" or so

…from now on you always can choose this theme if you want a invisible cursor.

PLAYING

Step 1: Now we have to set up the monitor. This may seem a little strange, but follow it through.

This may be better if you have two monitors then you can set one up for this, else I'd recommend taking all unnecessary items off your desktop as we'll be changing the resolution and if you have a lot of desktop items they'll all get smushed together.

Right click on the desktop and choose "Screen Resolution". Change whichever monitor you'll be playing on to the lowest screen resolution (closest to discworld noir's preference). Mine is 800 x 600.

If you have more than one monitor, make this your main monitor – this is so that the game will boot up on this screen.

Then click on "Advanced Settings" and the "Monitor" tab. In the bottom left you'll see the "Colors" tab, change this to 16bit.

Note, you'll have to change the bit rate every time you change the resolution of the monitor as it will default back to 32bit.

Changing the resolution to 16bit will make the game boot up with its standard colours. If it appear in a washed out purple it means its still opening in 32bit. If that's the case makes sure 'all' your monitors are set to 16bit.

Step 2: Start Discworld Noir and press Alt + Enter to enter windowed mode, this'll stop it crashing after the intro cutscene.

IMPORTANT, the only button that works on the title screen in "New Game". press either of the other two and it will crash. When it comes to loading games later on press F1 and load from there.

Step3:

• Start winexp from the folder you extracted it above
• Select the "Discworld Noir" entry from the list
• In the "Style"-Tab deselect "WS_BORDER" and "WS_DLGFRAME"

Then do the method suggested below or in the "Size and Position" Tab click "set to Topmost" to bring the screen infront of the start bar and check "Maximized" in "Window State".

• In the "Size and Position" Tab, set "Left" and "Top" to zero as well as the width and height to your current screen resolution

Now you should have a window with the game running in it, fullscreen and without borders, just like a real "fullscreen".

Step 4 (Optional):

• open the "Mouse" applet like above, choose the "Hidden" theme and apply it

Now you got rid of the really anoying Desktop mouse, and can enjoy the ingame one

DEBUGGING

This is important!

An issue I had after this was that the game wouldn't load any save files, it might not be the case for everyone but is good to check!

After you get past the intro press F1 and save the game, then try and load it. If it works with no issue great! Save frequently as i had it crash once after the Milka, i think its the transition between cinematic and gameplay that does it.

If it does crash and give you an odd error message this is what i did, i'm not exactly sure how it helped, but it runs now.

Step 1: Download this patch by the "Collector" http://sierrahelp.com/download.php?file=Files/NonSierra/DWNPatch.exe

Move it to the Discworld Noir folder and run it. If it gives you an option between fullscreen and windowed choose windowed.

Try and run the game and at the menu press F1 to load a game.

If it crashes try step 2

Step 2 (Really flailing around now!): insert disc 3 and copy the contents into the disc 1 folder on C:

Try and run the game and at the menu press F1 to load a game.

If it crashes try step 3

Step 3:

Start a new game skip through the intro with Esc and save in the office.

Go to the map and save a different file here

Go to the milka and save over the first

Try loading the second save.

If this crashes double double check that all your monitors are set to 16bit and try step 3 again saving and resaving until the load works.

Hopefully you shouldn't get this issue, but if you do this is how mine started working.

Please find my reference links below and play it again Sam...

REFERENCE LINKS

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/576124-discworld-noir/61200298

http://archive.adventuregamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22758

http://m0005.gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_discworld_noir.shtml

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/winexp.html