I know there are quite a few hardware "geeks" (hope that's not taken as an insult as it's not meant to be) here, but I've been having a problem and it is driving me completely nuts.

I will sometimes double click on a game, and it pops up and runs fine. Then, out of the blue at other times, I will double click on it, and will see the mouse pointer "spin" a minute or two and then... nothing. And then when I go into Task Manager, it shows up as a "Process" instead of an App. And it will usually say "32-bit." What I mean by that is like just a few minutes ago, I tried to play OOTP 17 (no, not a gog game, but this happens with gog games too) and when I looked in Task Manager listed under Processes was "OOTP 17 32-bit"

This has happened with Age of Empires, with Divine Divinity, with Konung Legend of the North (those last 2 are gog games) as well as many others. And when this happens I can NEVER get it to work, and have to restart the computer AND to add insult to injury, EVERY TIME I do that, the message comes up on the screen "Restarting" and it just sits there and spins and spins and spins. The other day, as a test, I left the house, went to the grocery store, put away the groceries when I got home, looked and sure enough the screen said "Restarting" and was still just spinning. So, I ALWAYS have to hold the power button down to force it off.

Does anyone know what causes this? I really don't think it's a hardware problem as this is a fairly new computer (about 7 months old) and it just "feels" like a software issue.... lol.. as if I would know.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone knows anything about this issue.

Plenty of geeks in here.

If you have your OS up to date, that could be the issue. The anniversary update screwed up a lot of things.

That is strange.

At this point, all I could ask you to do is to Reset your Windows and see if it helps.

I'd say throw out Windows 10 and instal Windows 7 instead. Although some GNU/Linux distro is preferred, I know there's an issue with getting games for linux, and WINE.

Windows 10 itself is just as solid as any version of Windows behind it. But even if the OP says it couldn't be the hardware, there's nothing stopping the hardware from being the issue either. It could be the drivers arming the hardware to go against each other for no good reason.

And while Linux is very good for what you want, it's another kind of fruit. Either he'll stick to what he already knows and works (whether 7 or 10) or dive into Linux headlong and learn about its advantages and quirks.

True. however the principles usually are far more fruitful when you understand them. I have to consider the idea, that if you take 20 minutes and learn basic Regular Expressions you'd get results back a thousand times what you put into it.

Regardless, us geeks will be here.

I don't know why people are so down on Windows 10... I don't like a LOT of things about it, mainly privacy issues, but then that's nothing a good firewall can't fix. As a performing OS, it's great. It's faster and generally easier to use than Windows 7 once you get used to the changes. Yeah, but being a geek doesn't mean disparaging someone for their choice in OS because it isn't your ideal. He wanted Windows 10 for a reason, or had it forced on him and can't get a copy of Windows 7. Either way, suggesting he change operating systems isn't all that helpful unless you're certain the problem is at an OS level, which you're not since you don't even use Win 10 and aren't familiar with it as a daily operating system. It's your first choice to assume that it's the problem without any other pertinent information like how old his hardware is and the like. To be fair, I'm not stating that the OS isn't the problem, but a lot of people are on a witch hunt about Windows 10 and unfairly blame it for cancer and world hunger.

I don't have/use Windows 8 either, however when I did have to use it to help a friend, in 30 minutes I was ready to pull my hair out.

I'm not sure about you, but privacy and control I think are fairly important, and not options with windows 10, or if they are, you have to jump through a LOT of hoops and hidden menus to hopefully get it (and with the policy editor removed, a number of those can't be done anymore). I've overheard and watched a gamer/streamer who's games got more and more sluggish, especially when his computer was updating or seeding the updates to other systems, before finally breaking his games entirely requiring him to reinstall the OS 3 times before he managed to prevent the updates that were messing up the system.

Windows 10 might be good some day. But today isn't that day. Microsoft has a history of putting out Beta level OSes, and especially with the push for Windows 10 they've made very questionable pushes for forcing the updates, using malware tactics or making you download the update and then nagging you until you agree to it.

Regardless how good a game, software or system might be, if you attach unwanted features or DRM, it's bad to encourage the behavior and better to ignore/refuse it.

More or less sums up my experience whenever I had to use an OS other than the one I have installed. But then again, I'm not the one that suggests taking some time to learn a different OS before complaining about it.

P.S. I will still suggest anyone interested in any of Microsoft's products to peruse the forums at My Digital Life. Tons of information for them, and not from a single camp either.

ok, some useful info:

Did you install directX9.0c?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34429

Even as it is claimed that directx is downwards compatible, it isn't. So give it a shot, installing this. Do not be bothered if it says dirext is already installed, install anyway. From the age of the games you mentioned, this could be a problem.

Process/App all the same thing. Just a different name ;) App = Application = program = Process. Win is only saying different because of a few bits, but at the end, everything is just a program/process, so don't get thrown off because of this.

What it seems to indicate, that you have problems running 32-bit applications.

Depending on your install this might apply to you (much fun reading ;) )

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa384249%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

It's not clear if you are trying to close those processes before launching the game again, your second attempts could have no effect just because of them.

I've had somewhat similar issues with Windows 7 as OFG. Maybe not problems shutting down or restarting Windows, but some games or applications just not starting properly for some reason, just nothing coming up. And rebooting Windows usually solves it.

This is one of the reasons why I am not one of those people keeping their PC booted up all the time, never rebooting it or shutting it down. These kind of odd issues seem to fix themselves quite often, by just rebooting the PC. So better to reboot the PC daily, just to keep things clear.

If that was the culprit, shouldn't he be having those problems all the time then? I understood they just happen sometimes, and rebooting the PC makes them work again.

I remember having similar issues with some older games on W7, having to start them twice before they actually ran.
Might be something to do with a wrapper or 'trick' or something.

As he said, he never got them working and Win was stuck in restarting mode. And out of his description he is having the problem all the time:

" I can NEVER get it to work, and have to restart the computer AND to add insult to injury, EVERY TIME I do that, the message comes up on the screen "Restarting" and it just sits there and spins and spins and spins. The other day, as a test, I left the house, went to the grocery store, put away the groceries when I got home, looked and sure enough the screen said "Restarting" and was still just spinning. So, I ALWAYS have to hold the power button down to force it off. "