Can you run Lemmings Paintball on Windows 10?

[vatten]

When I click `Install' in the CD's autorun menu nothing happens. Alternatively, changing the compatibility/administrator settings causes the installer to freeze.

I have installed Lemmings Paintball on a Windows XP virtual machine and copied over everything I could find to the same locations on the Windows 10 host (details below) but I get the message `To play Lemmings Paintball, you must first install it. Run the SETUP.EXE program on the CD'. Evidently I have missed something that tells Lemmings Paintball that is installed.

In particular, the program files (C:\Games\LemBall) to the same location with the following MD5 hash sums:

3892e4fd15af86d4651ee49cb10bd247 ./LemBall/DeIsLog.1
ec20be02a32dd817f6b367346c514dff ./LemBall/DSPDIB16.DLL
f6bf31b3b38d4444c827a1dcaff9a8dd ./LemBall/DSPDIB32.DLL
9ac9f9502f82839d36b7916448469f38 ./LemBall/LEMBALL.EXE
29f883e09412f79787e624de61bd431b ./LemBall/PBAIMOG.VSR

I found only two sets of entries in the registry:
# Set 1 of 2:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Visual Sciences]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Visual Sciences\Lemmings Paintball]
"SrcDisk"="D:"
"DestDir"="C:\\Games\\LemBall"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Visual Sciences\Lemmings Paintball\Beta]

# Set 2 of 2:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\UnInstall Lemmings Paintball]
"UninstallString"="C:\\WINDOWS\\uninst.exe -fC:\\Games\\LemBall\\DeIsLog.1"
"DisplayName"="Lemmings Paintball"

I also copied across ./All Users/Start Menu/Programs/Visual Sciences/Lemmings Paintball.lnk. Although I'm not sure what the equivalent Start Menu folder for All Users is for Windows 10, perhaps C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs?

I didn't find any new files in the Windows folder.

I read through the .hlp file but it only confirmed that once installed the buttons in autorun menu should change.

[kaywhyn]

Hi,

I also never played this game, nor do I think I ever have plans to, but I just tried it myself, and I can confirm that the game can indeed run on Windows 10. It might just be the CD copy you have. I can PM you the working one I downloaded from the Internet

[vatten]

Hi kaywhyn,
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the offer.

[vatten]

It seems that when running a 32-bit application on a 64-bit machine queries to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ are redirected to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ so the registry keys should be as follows:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Visual Sciences]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Visual Sciences\Lemmings Paintball]
"SrcDisk"="D:"
"DestDir"="C:\\Games\\LemBall"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Visual Sciences\Lemmings Paintball\Beta]

A quick side note, the 16-bit subsystem (NTVDM) does not exist in the 64-bit versions of Windows (7,8,10,11) so 32-bit applications with 16-bit installers cannot be installed without a workaround.

I used a Windows XP virtual machine but there was no need because all of the game files can be copied from the disc (I have the Argentum [Euro] version of Lemmings Paintball, which includes Lemmings 95). Using the above registry keys fixed the state of the autorun/title menu (the `Install Paintball' button is now greyed out and the `Play Paintball' button is clickable) plus it gets rid of the message that Lemmings Paintball is not installed. Unfortunately, clicking the Play button does not actually run the application but double clicking the executable LEMBALL.EXE in the game folder (or on the disc) now works fine.

However, fullscreen mode (shortcut F4) does not work because apparently routines are referenced that no longer exist in Kernel32.dll in Windows 7 onwards. The details of which are discussed on the following two webpages:
https://sourceforge.net/p/dxwnd/discussion/general/thread/1ce69f5937/
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=56316