Installing the original version of Falcon 4 on a PC with Windows 11 installed from scratch
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<p>Hello<br /><br />It’s all in the title: it is impossible to install the original version of Falcon 4 (and consequently BMS) on a machine on which W11 has been installed from scratch.<br /><br />I tried to do it using the 2 original CDs I have (yes, I’m a careful guy), the iso image that has always worked so far, and that with all possible compatibility modes. <br /><br />If no one has a trick that would help me, end of 20+ with Falcon then BMS? I can obviously boot on a disk with W10, but it will be quickly tedious … and maybe I will not be the only one with this problem soon. <br /><br />I hope someone can help me.<br /><br /></p>
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@SemlerPDX I dunno, it’s just not clear to me that it’s useful for anyone… it’s something originally intended for testing/debugging device drivers … maybe it’s still useful for folks who do that? outside of BMS, I haven’t heard anyone ever mention it, for at least 15 years.
It seems like there are many competing approaches implemented since… MSConfig.exe selective-startup … BCDEdit.exe boot profiles … incl. the “last-known good” boot profile to auto-revert from config changes which cause crashes on startup … or, probably more common, just using a VM with a restore-point, to test kernel-mode drivers.
MS has never been good about cleaning old junk out of the garage. But, counter example, they did stop releasing “checked” builds sometime a few years ago… which was also something mainly targetted to kernel driver dev and testing.
(So, short answer – I just didn’t know, and didn’t want to send someone on a goose chase looking for something that maybe didn’t exist anymore.
lol - no worries. If you don’t use it, or don’t know how it’s used these days or how much, I could understand how you’d question whether it’s useful to anyone.
I can tell you without a doubt that is absolutely crucial as an element of any non-server Windows OS, from an IT standpoint. This is THE go-to in order to get Windows booted up after it’s had a real bad reef hit and the situation calls for an X-Acto knife instead of a JDAM (as in, the GBU being ‘reinstall windows’).
All those utilities you mentioned like MSConfig, etc., cannot be accessed when Windows is FUBAR, and Safe-Mode is the way to un-FUBAR the OS so that you can access such utilities once more and regain control over the PC. You can even tell it to boot to Safe Mode with internet access (or not, by default).
Safe Mode would not go away without being replaced with something else of similar function, I’d bet dollars to donuts on that.
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<blockquote>Hello<br /><br />It’s all in the title: it is impossible to install the original version of Falcon 4 (and consequently BMS) on a machine on which W11 has been installed from scratch.<br /><br />I tried to do it using the 2 original CDs I have (yes, I’m a careful guy), the iso image that has always worked so far, and that with all possible compatibility modes. <br /><br />If no one has a trick that would help me, end of 20+ with Falcon then BMS? I can obviously boot on a disk with W10, but it will be quickly tedious … and maybe I will not be the only one with this problem soon. <br /><br />I hope someone can help me.<br /><br /><br /></blockquote><p>
“End of 20+ with Falcon then BMS” is a bit melodramatic. You can buy it on Steam for about $5 if you cant get your 24 year old disk to install.
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<p>It works.<br />Thanks for the help.</p>
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<blockquote>it is impossible to install the original version of Falcon 4 (and consequently BMS) on a machine on which W11 has been installed from scratch.<br /><br /><br /><br /></blockquote><p><br />Its not impossible - I just did it a month or so ago without any issues. If you can provide some details on what’s going wrong I would be glad to try to help.</p>
i9-12900KF w/ 32Gb RAM, NVidia RTX 4070, 5120x1440 primary w/ 1920x1080 secondary running MFDE
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<p>On Windows 10 folks say the trick was to reboot into “safe mode” and the install would work. I have no explanation and no theory to offer, for why that would be true, but that’s what people say.<br /><br />I don’t know if Windows 11 even has such a concept… or if it still works or not. </p>
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<blockquote>Its not impossible - I just did it a month or so ago without any issues. If you can provide some details on what’s going wrong I would be glad to try to help</blockquote><p><br />Hello.<br /><br />Thank you for the offer of help. <br />But I finally went into the easy way out by buying a version of Falcon 4 on Steam and putting the 2 original CDs and their ISO in the memory.<br /><br />So it works with a Steam version of Falcon 4. And if 7 € allow to start again for 20 years, it’s not too heavy an investment
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<blockquote>On Windows 10 folks say the trick was to reboot into “safe mode” and the install would work. I have no explanation and no theory to offer, for why that would be true, but that’s what people say.I don’t know if Windows 11 even has such a concept… or if it still works or not.</blockquote><p><br /><br />Hello<br /><br />Thanks for the tip. <br />I hope it can be used by others than me. <br /><br /></p>
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<blockquote>On Windows 10 folks say the trick was to reboot into “safe mode” and the install would work. I have no explanation and no theory to offer, for why that would be true, but that’s what people say.<br /><br />I don’t know if Windows 11 even has such a concept… or if it still works or not. </blockquote><p><br />…I know it was just speculation and presumption, but why ever would Windows get rid of safe mode (without replacing it with an alternative)? Even certain utility programs have a safe mode, to stop ‘startup’ items from firing and giving the users or repair tech time to identify and remove issues. IMHO, I would never guess that ‘safe mode’ would go away, though given the current market trends, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was shifted to a paid service model on top of Win11 like how certain tools are gated behind a ‘Pro’ version of their OS</p>
AVCS4 Voice Control Radio Menus for Falcon BMS (and other profiles for VoiceAttack): veterans-gaming.com/avcs
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<p>@SemlerPDX W11 has a safe mode, just like W10.</p>
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<p>@SemlerPDX I dunno, it’s just not clear to me that it’s useful for anyone… it’s something originally intended for testing/debugging device drivers … maybe it’s still useful for folks who do that? outside of BMS, I haven’t heard anyone ever mention it, for at least 15 years.<br /><br />It seems like there are many competing approaches implemented since… MSConfig.exe selective-startup … BCDEdit.exe boot profiles … incl. the “last-known good” boot profile to auto-revert from config changes which cause crashes on startup … or, probably more common, just using a VM with a restore-point, to test kernel-mode drivers.<br /><br />MS has never been good about cleaning old junk out of the garage. But, counter example, they did stop releasing “checked” builds sometime a few years ago… which was also something mainly targetted to kernel driver dev and testing.<br /><br />(So, short answer – I just didn’t know, and didn’t want to send someone on a goose chase looking for something that maybe didn’t exist anymore. :)</p>
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@SemlerPDX I dunno, it’s just not clear to me that it’s useful for anyone… it’s something originally intended for testing/debugging device drivers … maybe it’s still useful for folks who do that? outside of BMS, I haven’t heard anyone ever mention it, for at least 15 years.
It seems like there are many competing approaches implemented since… MSConfig.exe selective-startup … BCDEdit.exe boot profiles … incl. the “last-known good” boot profile to auto-revert from config changes which cause crashes on startup … or, probably more common, just using a VM with a restore-point, to test kernel-mode drivers.
MS has never been good about cleaning old junk out of the garage. But, counter example, they did stop releasing “checked” builds sometime a few years ago… which was also something mainly targetted to kernel driver dev and testing.
(So, short answer – I just didn’t know, and didn’t want to send someone on a goose chase looking for something that maybe didn’t exist anymore.
lol - no worries. If you don’t use it, or don’t know how it’s used these days or how much, I could understand how you’d question whether it’s useful to anyone.
I can tell you without a doubt that is absolutely crucial as an element of any non-server Windows OS, from an IT standpoint. This is THE go-to in order to get Windows booted up after it’s had a real bad reef hit and the situation calls for an X-Acto knife instead of a JDAM (as in, the GBU being ‘reinstall windows’).
All those utilities you mentioned like MSConfig, etc., cannot be accessed when Windows is FUBAR, and Safe-Mode is the way to un-FUBAR the OS so that you can access such utilities once more and regain control over the PC. You can even tell it to boot to Safe Mode with internet access (or not, by default).
Safe Mode would not go away without being replaced with something else of similar function, I’d bet dollars to donuts on that.
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M MaxWaldorf has marked this topic as solved on
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<p>Sharing my experience in the hopes it helps someone.<br /><br />I copied the CD to my hard drive (because the computer I’m installing onto doesn’t have a CD drive because who has a CD drive anymore, that’s so 1998).<br />Launching Setup.exe displays nothing. The 32-bit Setup Launcher task appears in Task Manager but nothing is displayed. I tried messing with compatibility mode, and DPI settings but nothing resolved this problem.<br />I then went to the “Details” tab in Task Manager. I right-clicked on Setup.exe and selected “Analyze wait chain”. I noticed that setup.exe was waiting for
nvcontainer. Some googling found that this is a NVidia process (I have an NVidia GPU, duh). I checked the box next to nvcontainer and selected “End process”. The setup program now displays!<br /><br />Killing nvcontainer appears to resolve launching Setup.exe every time now (I suspect until I reboot).<br /><br />Hope this helps!</p> -
<blockquote>Sharing my experience in the hopes it helps someone.<br /><br />I copied the CD to my hard drive (because the computer I’m installing onto doesn’t have a CD drive because who has a CD drive anymore, that’s so 1998).<br />Launching Setup.exe displays nothing. The 32-bit Setup Launcher task appears in Task Manager but nothing is displayed. I tried messing with compatibility mode, and DPI settings but nothing resolved this problem.<br />I then went to the “Details” tab in Task Manager. I right-clicked on Setup.exe and selected “Analyze wait chain”. I noticed that setup.exe was waiting for
nvcontainer. Some googling found that this is a NVidia process (I have an NVidia GPU, duh). I checked the box next to nvcontainer and selected “End process”. The setup program now displays!<br /><br />Killing nvcontainer appears to resolve launching Setup.exe every time now (I suspect until I reboot).<br /><br />Hope this helps!<br /><br />Thank you very much</blockquote><p><br /></p> -
<p>@MetalSteveK Bizarre … I guess that proximately explains why Safe Mode works (doesn’t load nvidia graphics drivers).<br /><br />Nice find. I’d strongly recommend a reboot after this. :)</p>
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sorry to necro this thread but having the same issue getting original Falcon 4 to install on a win 11 machine - this time with AMD graphics.
doing the analyse wait chain for setup.exe via details of process etc yielded that setup.exe was waiting for Messenger !!!
I killed that and then got…
Killed that and then we’re in like flynn!so in essence just keep hunting for what F4 installer exe is waiting for and killing whatever process is stopping it.
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@plehmann do yourself a BIG favor and put that CD in safe storage somewhere, then go on Steam or GoG and spend the $6.99 or whatever and download the version that installs without issue.
