Good evening everyone,

I have recently switched my desktop PC to windows 11 and noticed that Settlers 3 does not start anymore.

It works perfectly fine if I start it on my win 10 based notebook.

Checking the Settlers 3 sub forum I found that, on older versions of the game, the winmm.dll would cause problems.

However it seems that since then the GoG teams fixed this matter, as I can not find such a file in my settlers 3 folder anymore.

I have tried doing a clean reinstall of the game, as well as a full reinstall of GoG Galaxy, assuming it might be a problem of the client still thinking I am on windows 10 and making some wrong connection while installing or launching the game.

Neither solved the problem. Changing settings in the settler setup file did not help any, either.

I have noted the following things about the issue:

If I use the desktop shortcut to start the game, Galaxy starts and opens the game page.

If I try to use the "start" button on galaxy, it greys out for about one second and then becomes available again (Task manager says the .exe starts for about half a second and stops immediately.

If I try to start the executable right in the game menu, It asks me to start the game as admin. If I agree, it tells me "_inmm.dll not found in game folder" and closes the .exe.

In neither of those cases the game shows any visual queue of starting up.

The error message I get when starting the .exe directly makes me think that maybe the fix applied by GoG a few year back might not work on the new windows version anymore, but that is just my uneducated guess.

Maybe someone here has a better idea?

Update: Just how it always is, after posting here I find a post that I had previously overlooked about this.

In case anyone else is looking for a solution: Download the offline installation file from gog.com (the original post says you have to download it from there, but Galaxy also offers an option to download this file, and I am pretty sure it just accesses the same server file).

You can just install the offline installation over the existing installation, it will overwrite all files and add the missing .dll.

The standard installation folder is your standard GoG folder by default, but make sure to check the folder just in case.

Thank you @Apfelbacke for the suggestion

the Galaxy install is the issue, download the manual installer, run the installer, it will install the missing .dll file, then open the galaxy app and run the game from there if the missing .dll is the only issue, i was playing around with the other methods to no avail then found this fix not sure if anything else contributed to the fix but try this method first off.

Hey,
I installed the GOG-Version via GOG Galaxy.
I had a few issues:
_inmm.dll error (and mciGetErrorStringA error)
DirectDraw Error
white border ingame and in loading screen
Serialnumber

I needed to fix all these issues but now "The Settler III" is running without any issue on Windows 11, without any compatibility mode.
Hardware: (Laptop - Medion Erazer Beast X25 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, 64GB RAM & NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080)

Since It took me 2 hours to fix everything, I made a short guide and a ZIP-file with all programs needed if you are facing the same issues...
www.file-upload.net/download-14904687/TheSettlersIII-Win11.zip.html

Best regards,
rr321

Gdzie należy zainstalować plik dotyczący direct draw????

Is this for real? There's a lot of questionable popups on that site. I can't get Settlers 3 to work after updating to Windows 11. I keep getting a runtime error and abnormal program termination.

Hi,

Download offline version ->Install-> take serial key from gog (use browser not app (click on game->more->serial key))

Works with win11 100%

I found a solution to this here:
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/213520069-Settlers-3-Ultimate-Collection?product=gog

Under "Settlers® 3: Ultimate Collection - Game asks for CD-Key in singleplayer mode"

If you are using GOG GALAXY, select the game and click the customization icon (next to PLAY):
→Manage installation
→Verify/Repair

This fixed the CD key issue for me after I had fixed the not-starting issue by using the offline installer

Hi guys, i have DirectDraw Error DDERR_UNSUPPORTED occured at CDirectDraw::DDSetDisplayMode. Error on WIndows 11 64bit HP Laptop with 2 GPU Intel 620 + Radeon R5.

I try everything but still not working. I tried on Intel GPU, or AMD, DirectX update, GPUs Drivers update, NET Framework update. Legacy mode (is on) enabled. Running as Administrator, compatibility mode... still nothing. Direct Draw is enabled in dxdiag tool.
Still not working. Do you know any solution, or are you able to connect with my PC on team viewer for example and help me ? I will be very apparciate :)

additional info: I have installed from offline instalator as you suggest here in this topic. The same results as GOG instalator.

Think this is a resolution problem that the game can't set for some reason on your monitor.
Maybe the resolution can't go below a certain number and that is the problem maybe because the minimum resolution you can play the game is probably lower than your pc monitor can go?

Minimum resolution as i can set into Windows is 1024x768, and i have set the same in setups3.exe.

Still the same DirectDraw error.

Maybe pc gaming wiki can help
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Settlers_III
Try the united settlers.
Also i haven't played this game yet so i don't know the options or how it starts.
You said you can set it in setups3 but it still didn't work.
Also you did install directx 9.0c probably since the game is old and uses that.
Also don't install in program files, but this probably isn't the problem here.
Don't know anything else i could think of.
So you did activate direct play in legacy components.


https://www.minitool.com/news/directdraw-error.html
Besides, you need to enable .NET Framework 3.5. Here you need to check the box of .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0).
Also tried compability modes and Incompatible screen resolution may lead to Windows 11/10 DirectDraw Error. In this situation, configure the screen resolution compatibility to fix the issue.

Step 1: Right-click on the legacy game and choose Properties.

Step 2: Under the Compatibility tab, choose the option for Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution and save the change.

Thanks for your help but nothing.

Anyway i have run it on W11.
You have to download lobby.siedler3.net/en
aLobby package , install it and run Settlers 3 with s3ce.exe

Then working fine using OpenGL, DirectX or software CPU rendering - you can run on widescreen too!
Unfortunately game asking about serial number but GOG will not provide you becouse "Serial keys depleted"
So you have to looking for any other serial in google for S3.

Probably faster way is download other version from Internet than buy it legal from GoG... unfurtunately... but true.

There was a serial number officially released by Ubisoft for the case you lost your original key:
8086-8331-2174-3934-5006