Hello

Sometime ago I bought AOW 1 on a sale and installed the MapViewer.ShowScene Crash fix and played the game a little bit. It was fine but most imporantly IT WORKED. Now that I came back to the game it doesn't work at all. Instead, after watching the intro the game would show the menu and then immedietly turn itself off. I turned off the intro in the settings, no help. I went to the DEP and did the compatibity mode in XP and Win98/me and it still doesn't work. I only discovered that later during the intro there is an error message: "Exception occured during ExecuteBItSurface event". It's weird because the game worked previosly. I even deleted it and reinstalled it again with the latest version of the MapViewer fix and the same problem occurs. Once the game starts and shows the menu, the game turns itself off. Anyone knows the solution???

OK nevermind. It turns out that DEP was not working at all on my PC. I had to go to the registry in order to fix it. I used this forum post as a guide from other game in any case someone else has the same or similar issue ("If setting up DEP for the game doesn't work for you, try this", I can't post links):

[i]- Open the registry editor
- Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
- Find the entry for the AOW executables that you added in the DEP Filter before
- Check if they have something set like "HIGHDPIAWAREDisableNXShowUI", yes that is without spaces ( and the reason why DEP filter is not working .. yet )
- If so, put a space between these words ( DisableNXShowUI is the important one )
- Save the entry[/i]

Thanks for coming back to share the solution, I'll keep this one in mind!

mine was missing "DisableNXShowUI" completely
I added it to AOW and AOWCompat

Man, I love ya! I haven't been able to run this ever since a previous GOG update. It worked fine and then just stopped! It's working fine again and I can happly enter the Realm once more! Thanks man!!

I didn't post anything yesterday simply because I was wicked tired.
Briefly I had the same issue here. An iteration of AoW (the first one) that ran fine a month ago.

I actually have the next two AoW II, and Shadow Magic at Steam so while looking to see what was in my library I went ahead, spent the six bucks and bought from there just on a hunch that they'd make it work. Nope. Sucker...

Only dig this, they have pinned to the top of the forum for AoW an "If the game's not working for you..." sticky.

Step by step stuff, using set up / Compatibility mode(s) (yup Win XP SP2 then Win 7 to finish). The Windows XP was to activate a download of Direct Play. It did Not download for me at that time, so I assume it's already there.

Ultimately, and the reason I'm here is what allowed both installs to run, on two different machines (both Win10 - yet vastly different computers) was my seeing "No Sound" and toggling that radio button. That's it. Runs beautiful. Looks beautiful. I don't even think compatibility mode is needed tbh. For whatever reason it's almost a deal breaker (lack of immersion) and personally I'm still getting a feel for this genre, if you will.

I'd Like my sound back.
I recall how for many years - sound could kill a 20-40 dollar purchase once you brought it home from Game Stop or some such place. Here I am again, lol.

(Note: the compatibility mode I mentioned was instructed to be used not on the game executable but rather AoWSetup.exe.)

I had no idea how to edit or use DEP / and or the registry. Man, that was confusing, because I'd just never seen or used it before. Though it was really encouraging despite my frustration to see Arktiem's response. ^^^

GoG's own helps/support pages introduced me to Windows DEP, just yesterday and had me go to it specifically and set it to (GoG said it was the Default setting) "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only."

Oh, and through Steam, AoW II runs and sounds amazingly too. No fiddling. I just had to know at that point.

With others posts help,
At my win11,
AoWSetup.exe will show acceses read address error if not use compatible mode with winxp~win8(in my computer AoWSetup.exe it dont have higher resolution options if chose 95 and 98 mode).

After add registry value "HIGHDPIAWARE DisableNXShowUI" (notice there have a space) from location \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers，and change the DEP option and add the executable like the screenshots ,
It's not crashed on the menu once again.

Ps.i don't know why, use the AoWCompat.exe to launch game the intro video will shows black,but no other problems.

I did all this and it works now, thank you.
On the other hand, now the game stutters like crazy every now and then. Though that may be due to the MapViewer.ShowScene patch I installed, I don't know.

Amazing! really make it work! Amazing amazing..... thx again. this guide priceless!