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The color problem is caused by a conflict with explorer.exe. Here are the steps for ending the explorer process and restarting it once you are done playing.

1. Right click on the task bar and click "Open Task Manager"
2. Start Dark Reign.
3. Hit Alt+Tab to minimize the game.
4. Go back to the Task Manager and go to the processes tab. Find "explorer.exe", right click on it, and click "End Process". Your desktop will disappear, that is normal.
5. Hit Alt+Tab again to go back to Dark Reign.
6. After exiting the game, the Task Manager should still be there. Click File->New Task.
7. In the text box, type "explorer.exe" (without quotes). Your desktop will be back.

I have put together some batch files to automate this process (name these whatever you'd like to):

Original Game:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"Dark Reign - Original Game.exe"
pause
start explorer.exe

Expansion:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"Dark Reign - Expansion.exe"
pause
start explorer.exe

Copy and paste these into notepad and save them with a .bat file extension. Then save them in "C:\Program Files\GOG.com\Dark Reign\" or wherever you installed the game. After you do this, right click on each of the batch files, Send To -> Desktop. This will create a shortcut.

Hope this helps
Post edited January 27, 2011 by relynt
You know that the shortcut of the GOG release does this automatically?

Still if it doesn't.... use this.
Oh I didn't know that. Well it has never done it automatically for me so I have to use this every time regardless.
The above procedure works for me (on Win7 64-bit).

Thanks relynt!
Thats awesome dude, you are a legend, thanks heaps!
Oh yeah, that works on Vista 64bit.
Post edited July 25, 2011 by the_gazz_man
I was having heaps of trouble with this game. It seems like the Gog.exe restarts the explorer process prematurely.

I had to modify the recommended script like so to get it to work:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"Dark Reign - Original Game.exe"
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
pause
start explorer.exe

Closing explorer again after the gog exe starts Dark reign allowed me to play with proper colours.

Thanks for the tip OP, and I hope this post helps anyone else who has had trouble getting this or the other workarounds to work.

EDIT: I had the wrong script above, now fixed.
Post edited December 05, 2011 by thePyro_13
avatar
thePyro_13: I was having heaps of trouble with this game. It seems like the Gog.exe restarts the explorer process prematurely.

I had to modify the recommended script like so to get it to work:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"Dark Reign - Original Game.exe"
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
pause
start explorer.exe

Closing explorer again after the gog exe starts Dark reign allowed me to play with proper colours.

Thanks for the tip OP, and I hope this post helps anyone else who has had trouble getting this or the other workarounds to work.

EDIT: I had the wrong script above, now fixed.
Thanks for this, the official launcher + script at top of post don't work for me on Win7 64 - yours is the only way I can get it to work.
Hmmm..

When I run this, the program insists on being started with a CD. Dang!

Any suggestions would be most welcome.
avatar
thePyro_13: I was having heaps of trouble with this game. It seems like the Gog.exe restarts the explorer process prematurely.

I had to modify the recommended script like so to get it to work:

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
"Dark Reign - Original Game.exe"
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
pause
start explorer.exe

Closing explorer again after the gog exe starts Dark reign allowed me to play with proper colours.

Thanks for the tip OP, and I hope this post helps anyone else who has had trouble getting this or the other workarounds to work.

EDIT: I had the wrong script above, now fixed.
avatar
cmthomas45: Hmmm..

When I run this, the program insists on being started with a CD. Dang!

Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Do you have any options checked in the compatibility tab for the shortcut or exe. I found that certain options caused the insert cd dialogue to block the game. For reference, with the above script i have turned off all compatibility settings, and am running the game fine.

Good luck(and Merry Christmas)!
Post edited December 25, 2011 by thePyro_13
Thanks very much.

I'll look at those settings.
avatar
cmthomas45: Hmmm..

When I run this, the program insists on being started with a CD. Dang!

Any suggestions would be most welcome.
avatar
thePyro_13: Do you have any options checked in the compatibility tab for the shortcut or exe. I found that certain options caused the insert cd dialogue to block the game. For reference, with the above script i have turned off all compatibility settings, and am running the game fine.

Good luck(and Merry Christmas)!
I would use this solution, except the "Accessories" folder in my Start Menu has disappeared, for some reason (and so has the "Games" folder as well, for that matter).
This work thank gog! you dont know how long ive looked for a work around for this
avatar
thePyro_13: I was having heaps of trouble with this game. It seems like the restarts the explorer process prematurely.

I had to modify the recommended script like so to get it to work:

taskkill /f /IM
"Dark Reign - Original "
taskkill /f /IM
pause
start

Closing explorer again after the gog exe starts Dark reign allowed me to play with proper colours.

Thanks for the tip OP, and I hope this post helps anyone else who has had trouble getting this or the other workarounds to work.

EDIT: I had the wrong script above, now fixed.
avatar
AlexT: Thanks for this, the official launcher + script at top of post don't work for me on Win7 64 - yours is the only way I can get it to work.
Thank you! Works fine with me with Win7 (64-bits).
I rather recently discovered the "untemporary" solution to the problem which doesn't require to kill explorer.exe (and will hopefully be picked up by GOG next time they update Dark Reign).

Like in case of most other old games with corrupt colors you can fix the issue with a slight addition to the registry. I've prepared reg files for it:
Dark Reign Color Fix

It includes files for 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows. Just open the corresponding one (if you're not sure which one you can use both, it won't do any harm). The colors will still be corrupt first time you enter the menu but once you enter the next screen or change the brightness the corruption will be gone.

I'm aware that sadly as of now GOG's version of Dark Reign will always kill explorer.exe (unless you directly run the game executable which will request the CD), so the fix will only be helpful to owners of the retail version of the game for now.
Post edited April 18, 2013 by F4LL0UT
F4LL0UT, it's not a problem; just install the unofficial 1.7 patch.
Then launching the game through any of the exes will not automatically exit explorer (only if you launch the LaunchDR.bat will it exit explorer).

Some people have complained about music not playing in the 1.7 patch. Personally I've experienced no such problems; all the music plays during the game just fine. Guess they fixed that one over at their end.

The only problem is that your registry colour fix doesn't seem to work for long. Changing the brightness in the main menu reverts the colours to their proper value, yet they mess up again after a couple of screens.
When playing, the first few minutes is fine and everything has the proper colours, yet after a little while they suddenly become psychedelic again for no apparent reason.

Eh... maybe you can look into it?
We're so close to getting a useable Dark Reign version..