I own the "10th Anniversary DVD Edition" of the Myst collection which includes the original Myst Masterpiece Edition, Riven, and Myst 3: Exile. I previously played and solved the first 2 games many years ago on a Windows XP PC, and I had installed Myst 3: Exile on XP before and started a game but didn't get too far into it and never picked it back up.

Recently, I decided to try installing Exile to check it out again and to my dismay the game does not run out of the box on Windows 7 x64 sadly. I've tinkered around with shortcut compatibility options a bit but was unable to get the game to launch. I haven't really changed anything but I did reboot my computer a day or so ago and now the game will actually launch even though I didn't change anything.. but as soon as I move the mouse slightly it switches out of the game back to my desktop. The game has not crashed and is still running, it has just shifted out of focus. If I click on the game on the taskbar it comes back into focus and appears to stay in focus, however now the mouse no longer works so you can't interact with it at all.

I would just rebuy the game on GOG ready to use if it actually existed on GOG, but sadly it is one of the Myst games that exists in a black-hole outside of the reach of GOG still.

As such, I'm wondering if anyone has had experience trying to get this game to work on Windows 7 x64 and/or newer operating systems and if they have any tips to proffer that might be some useful secret sauce. :)

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/game-issue-with-direct-x-9-myst-iii-exile.262810/

ignore that it is for Linux, but do you have the possibility to select Software rendering / Direct3D ?

Have you googled for it? At least here seems to be some older discussion, and I think I saw someone saying at least there having also Myst 3 running on Windows 7, but then many others didn't seem to be as lucky, if I understood correctly. Could Quicktime be the culprit? Some say they chose to install it with the game, some didn't:

http://www.mystcommunity.com/board/index.php?/topic/33395-myst-games-in-vista-windows-7-incl-64-bit/

I am unsure which Myst collection I have. I am pretty sure I have at least "Ages of Myst" which has only Myst 1-2, but I thought I have also another collection including the third game as well, maybe even the same collection as you. If so, maybe I could try it too.

I went to that website, how to get Myst games to run on Windows 7 64 bit. I own the Myst 3 DVD version that came with Myst 4 revelations. I got both games to work under Windows 7 64 bit. If you follow the directions on that forum, it makes it a lot easier!

Maybe use ResidualVM? http://wiki.residualvm.org/index.php/Myst_3

Yes, the game shortcut starts up a game launcher that lets you choose between Direct3D (default) and Software. Whichever one I choose, the game starts up to the main menu and the mouse initially works. I can click on options etc. however regardless of which rendering method was chosen everything looks and acts exactly the same, and after about 8-10 seconds the game suddenly becomes defocused and minimized while the Windows desktop comes back into full focus. The game is still running, and can be switched back to however mouse input no longer functions so it is unplayable. Yeah, I searched around a bit and didn't find any solid sounding solutions so I thought to poll the community here as well. I also have standalone Myst IV: Revelation on DVD but have not installed that one yet.

The URL you posted seems to bring up a 404 not found error, so I couldn't check that out. :)


One other detail: My game version right off the DVD is "Version 1.27 (177) ML DVD" as claimed by the launcher dialogue.

Looks like an interesting last-ditch option to try, but I'd ultimately prefer to get the original game to run as-is than rely on a 3rd party interpreter if possible. I found this on that site:

http://www.residualvm.org/news/20140903/
"Adding support for Myst III: Exile to ResidualVM is nearly done. Now, we only need your help to find the last rough edges by playing the game thoroughly and reporting any issues you encounter. "

That was posted 2 years ago with no subsequent comments. Sadly that's what happens to most of the open source engine recreation/simulation etc. projects out there, they get started by enthusiasts who eventually lose interest and move on over time or when things get too complex to work out. :o/

Worst case though, if I can't find a solid solution I could always set up an older PC with XP on it just for this and perhaps a few other games though. Another option would be XP in a VM.
Oh, one more thing... I did let it install Quicktime, and when Quicktime subsequently offered to update itself I cancelled it as I didn't want it updating to some newer version that might be incompatible with the game, as I've had that happen with old games in the past (although not on this computer).

Quicktime is unlikely to be the problem however as the game executable starts up to the main menu and works fine, then just 8-10s later it loses focus back to the Windows desktop randomly. No videos are played or anything that would interact with Quicktime at all, so I doubt it has anything to do with Quicktime per se.

http://www.mystcommunity.com/board/index.php?/topic/33395-myst-games-in-vista-windows-7-incl-64-bit/page__view__findpost__p__376645

Suggests the same compatibility settings I was already using but using 98/ME compat, so I tried that also and the same problem results. The forum post suggests the mouse problem is a remaining issue though, so it might be the case that this game just wont run playably on Widnows 7/x64.

While reading through this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/myst/comments/3uhw8f/myst_iii_wont_run_on_windows_8/

What about this fucked up copy protection system, is Myst 3 using it?

Might be part of the problem? IIRC W7 was really bad with handling it.

Hmm, I don't see any copy protection system mentioned in the linked discussion, just reference to a no-CD patch. No-CD patches are useful to avoiding the irritation of having to put a CD/DVD in a drive for content to be accessed, or even for copy protection if that's what you mean, but that's more of an issue of irritation than one that prevents a game from working. The game is accessing the DVD ok, and I just started up a game by launching it and choosing NEW GAME immediately. The game fired up the DVD and while it was trying to load data it minimized back to desktop. I returned back to the game by clicking on the taskbar and it came back up as before, and the movie scene finished and the game started...

... but without a working mouse.

That's the thing, all of the "solutions" online I've found can get the game executable to run and the menu to come up, and even to start a game but I am wondering if the people saying "I got it to work" have just got that far and then concluded "woohoo, it works, I'm going to go tell everyone" without actually trying to launch and play the game. :)

I find many references online to people with Windows 7 64bit or 8 who can get this far and the mouse doesn't work just like I'm experiencing. Doesn't matter if I use any of the XP compat settings, 98/ME or 95 I get the same result. Repeated with it set for "all users" for all the options and with and without administrator mode forced. In all cases the game starts up and the mouse works until some random ghost inside the computer decides to cause the game to ALT-TAB out to the desktop completely on its own and then the mouse no longer works. Once you go back into the game by clicking on it on the taskbar, it never ALT-TAB's itself again but the mouse never works again either. I've never had this happen with any other game before, very weird.

I've no idea though what if any copy protection the game might be using. Still, there are people who have this game who say that it works on Windows 7/x64 no problem, and PC Gaming Wiki or some site like that states the game works flawless (which is obviously a crock of shit from everything I've seen online so far researching it). ;)

Ah the fun we go through for gaming nostalgia eh? hehehe

Hmm... interesting question. Quite some time since I played that. I'll get out my disk and see if I can get it to run :D

Oh shit, I got it to work! What is the magic solution you might ask? I have no idea! LOL

More specifically, here is what I did... I launched Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit and checked off some settings to match some of the settings on shortcut compatibility recommendations. I saved it and activated the database. Game failed as before.

Out of sheer irritation I went back into the ACT settings and turned on a crapload of random settings whimsically. Saved and activated it, launched the game and it fucking works now. Hahahahahahaha.

I will have to go back later and disable one setting at a time and test the game to see if I can narrow down the exact setting that works. If I can find a minimal number of settings which work and the game seems to reliably launch with them, I will clean up the messy ACT database and put the database up somewhere for others to download. I'm not sure if you have to install MS ACT to activate a new database or if Windows has some magic way of handling that itself though, but anyone wanting to use this solution might have to install ACT also. It's a free download from Microsoft in any case.

It's not often that randomly pushing buttons and smashing your head on the keyboard yields a working solution but that's almost exactly what I did this time. ;oP

(I wonder if that's how GOG gets games to work? Hrm.... :oP )

Well this is not a myth. I just installed the game, started it and played 10-15mins. No problems at all :P
(yep, Win7/64bit)

good that you also got it to work :-)

Do you have the 10th Anniversary Edition on DVD, or some other?

I have a DVD that contains the first three games, it is called Myst: The Trilogy.