Worms in Windowed Mode?

[Jason224]

I desperately wish to play WA in windowed mode, if it's possible please let me know. thanks in advance.

[CyberShadow]

You can use:

1) A virtual machine, such as VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC
2) A Linux installation, and play W:A with Wine.

[knkn]

I've pretty much almost got windowxp pro installed with qemu, but would there be a better way to do all of this? Especially since I don't know exactly how I'd install anything on a virtual machine :P

[CyberShadow]

That's a virtual machine as well, although I'm not sure QEMU supports DirectDraw. Microsoft Virtual PC is free and is known to work. You could try that.

[Muzer]

It's also best to install an older OS for less disk space and less resource-hungriness

[franpa]

but only if there are drivers for your hardware and the older operating system.

[Muzer]

WHAT??? The franpa alert site is down!

Anyway, you don't need drivers for your system because a generic system is emulated.

[bonz]

WHAT??? The franpa alert site is down!
Oh no!
Many times I have thought about making backups/mirrors of those.
Did anyone do that?

[knkn]

..although I'm not sure QEMU supports DirectDraw.

Is directdraw required for wa? And, while I'm at it, what's the smallest OS [i don't give a damn if its some stupid linux distro at this point] that I'm assuming supports DirectDraw, and could run comfortably on 256ram? I'm hoping under 500mb?

[MadEwokHerd]

Yes, it requires DirectDraw. I'd say that your best bet for a virtual machine is Windows 2000 because Wine's directdraw is slow (and probably even slower in a vm). Failing that, WinXP. And Qemu is relatively slow so I'd avoid that if possible.

If you really need something small, you could go with Damn Small Linux, but I expect it'd perform worse and be harder to set up.

[knkn]

Haha did exactly what you've implied not to do: I installed windows98 on a vm [qemu, but aren't they transferrable between vm programs?] and would be great I guess because that's what w2/wa were designed for, but I'm on a wireless laptop and couldn't figure out how to connect to the internet. :\

[CyberShadow]

W:A should still run just fine under Windows 98.

[knkn]

I see. Looks like I'm steering away from win98, and am looking at the lightest-easiest linux distro I could run through vmware and run wa easily. That is, if this is absolutely the only way to get wa windowed. I don't see why it'd be that terribly difficult to have a setting like /NOINTRO for regular use on regular windows to windowize? it.

[CyberShadow]

I see. Looks like I'm steering away from win98, and am looking at the lightest-easiest linux distro I could run through vmware and run wa easily. That is, if this is absolutely the only way to get wa windowed.

You need only one or the other. Wine can run W:A windowed by itself. Virtual machines run in their separate window.

I don't see why it'd be that terribly difficult to have a setting like /NOINTRO for regular use on regular windows to windowize? it.

Paletted games can't run in a window, because they take up all available palette space. W:A uses 8-bit paletted graphics.

[knkn]

Paletted games can't run in a window, because they take up all available palette space. W:A uses 8-bit paletted graphics.

So in the near future, when WA is true color [or is there any other setting inbetween 8bit-truecolor that would allow it?] the update 'windowed wa and minimize stability' will come true?

[SilPho]

I'm afraid it won't be near future, it's a long way off but the plans are there at least. You're much much much better off trying a virtual machine than waiting for the update.

Alternatively you can try what I mentioned here.
http://forum.team17.co.uk/showpost.php?p=628480&postcount=7

[ExtraMude]

Well, I have one solution for most of you. I'm using Windows Home Premium 64 bit. What I did to fix the color issue is right click on the WA.exe and go to Compatibility. I put a checkmark next to everything and selected Windows 98 / Windows ME compatibility. Not really sure if that last thing has any effect but the game runs fine with good color. You still might get that color glitch like 1 out of 20 times opening the program but I doubt it, was probably something I did wrong. I want to know how to run the game in a window though since I usually only play when I'm waiting for something to download or Render.

[idlethumbs]

hi guys, i'm running worms on windows 7 64 bit,
so far i havent been able to get it windowed, or enable alt-tab successfully.
ctrl alt del works, then you can select task manager and get out that way, but for me this results in a screwy resolution in which i can do nothing anyway - a friend of mine however can use this effectively.

as for colour, i found that quitting explorer works beautifully (will close all windows),

to make a batch file to do this for you copy the text below into a text editor and save it as a .BAT file in your worms directory with the WA.exe file, then create a shortcut to the bat file for your convenience. Enjoy :)



@echo
@echo

=============================================

======================
@echo Welcome to Idlethumb's Worms

colour fixer v.0.0
@echo

=============================================

======================
@echo.
@echo In order to use this file please

place it inside your
@echo worms directory. Where WA.exe is

found and then RUN IT!
@echo.
@echo if the worms you are destroying are

not from worms
@echo armageddon, or the filename is not

'wa.exe'
@echo the easiest thing is to rename the

app to: 'wa.exe'
@echo.
@echo.
@echo WARNING: this batch file works by

closing all
@echo instances of windows Explorer.exe

(restarted on exit)
@echo.
CHOICE /C YN /M " Alreet, Are you ready

to close all open windows?"%1
@echo off
IF ERRORLEVEL==2 GOTO QUIT
IF ERRORLEVEL==1 GOTO WORMS
:WORMS
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
wa.exe
Start explorer.exe
:QUIT

[Explorer]

@ idlethumbs:
http://worms2d.info/Troubleshooting_FAQ#The_game_colours_get_all_messe d_up
^ READ this before posting