Having trouble getting Myst Masterpiece (Anniversary Edition) to run.

Myst Masterpiece is, of course, the allegedly improved version of the original Myst game. Upon installation, I cannot get the game to work. Attempting to enter the game through the shortcut simply gives me a black screen for about ten seconds, then it crashes back to the desktop with the usual XP error message telling me it has encountered a problem and has to close, where I can choose to send an error report or not. I've looked around with google a little bit, and I have seen some rather old claims made that the DVD Myst Masterpiece edition can be difficult to get running on XP.

I've tried telling it to run in 256 colors and 640x480 in properties, but this doesn't seem to change anything. However, if I tell it to run in compatibility mode for either Windows 98 or 95, it does enter the game. I'm presuming it takes me to a main menu or something, but I'm not sure, as the screen remains black, and I can only hear a whistling wind sound effect playing. Moving the mouse around toward the center of the screen shows what I guess is the in-game hand cursor for my mouse, but when I move the mouse on the edges of the screen, I can see it is playing in an expanded window (I don't know if this is standard for the game or not), and my mouse returns to the normal Windows cursor.

I have the latest version of Quicktime (7.2), and of course the latest DirectX. I do have the colorquality set to 32-bit.There is one solution I've found from looking around on Google that I have not tried yet, which is the unofficial Myst Masterpiece patch. This is mainly because I haven't been able to find a working download link for it, though I haven't done extensive searching for it yet. But I also have my doubts that it will work, as I've seen many claims that it simply made the game think you were trying to run it in compatibility mode for Windows NT (which you can't do, and thus the patch didn't work for these people).

If anyone can help me out, I'd be very grateful.

Yes, I've read that the original Myst works on XP, as well, and have also read accounts before of people saying that they could get the original Myst to work but not Myst Masterpiece. I've pretty much made up my mind to try and acquire Myst, as it sounds like I have a better chance at getting that to run properly than Masterpiece. In any case, I'm glad I'm not the only one going through the exact same scenario, as that at least suggests it isn't just an isolated problem.

If I can't get the original Myst to work, either, I suppose I could always get Real Myst and see if it runs.

Yeah, just go with the original. You can probably find it in a bargain bin somewhere for like five bucks. It is just ironic that myst masterpiece is supposed to work with xp, but it doesn't, but the original myst which was made for windows 3.1 works fine.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I played through masterpiece on windows 2k and the game is almost exactly the same as the original, just with an added solution system. You can get those online anyway. They supposedly "remastered" the sound and video, but it was pretty much the same to me.

Haha, well I did the same thing! I got the 10th collection (which are my second versions of myst and riven, and my third of exile). Yeah, I would just try and find a copy of the original.

I tried the patch, but that doesn't work. thesaxmaniac

Could you send a link to that patch? - Maybe it will work to me ..

Hi gang. I've just joined Gamespot after Googling for a solution to XP problems with Myst Masterpiece.

I'll make this a brief post in hope it elicits a response from others who are better at computers than me (!)

1) I loaded my newly-purchased Myst Masterpiece onto my newly purchased Dell laptop. It won't work.

2) I then loaded Myst Masterpiece onto my old Dell PC. It does work.

Both computers are running Windows XP SP2.

I purchased Myst Masterpiece with a view to running it on the laptop, so am disappointed it won't even start up. However, having read comments here and elsewhere, I'm surprised the game loaded OK onto my Dell PC and is running absolutely fine (under XP). I've made NO changes at all to the computer -- it's not running in XP compatability, nor have I altered the screen resolution (actually, it's playing fine on a 20" Acer Ferrari widescreen. . .)

Is this situation some kind of a clue as to how to get Myst Masterpiece to run on XP?

Any ideas what to do next? I mean, if it works straight out of the box on an old XP OS PC, but not at all on a brand new XP OS notebook, then. . . ?????????????????????????????????????

Oh: Happy New year, folks, from over here in the UK.