Ever since I first attempted to play this series starting with part 3 I assumed it was a disjointed series that had nothing to do with the last so I selected part 3 cause it looked interesting. After managing to play part 3 once only after a year after buying it due to not being able to find any accurate information on why the game wouldn't boot; only got it for 0.74 cents not much of a loss... I managed to get it to run after doing some research through forums and asking chat gpt then looking through the game folder I came to find this series has a file it has to call in order to boot called "GameuxInstallHelper.dll" which looks for a specific version of DirectX that's not the problem I reloaded my entire DirectX library starting from June 2010. Problem is this install helper that even if it finds the corresponding DirectX files it will apparently for whatever reason seems to ignore all updated software and lock you out of the game.

I've tried the following: Compatibility mode Windows XP service pack 3 and changing the screen resolution which still resulted in a permission screen asking if I would like to give this Unknown publisher permission to make changes to my drive I didn't want to give it permissions especially if it would give Runaway 3 Admin privileges. From what I know even if you give it permission to make changes it just takes you either back to downloading the needed DirectX files which I already did, or it goes to from what I read to a outdated website with software that Microsoft doesn't use anymore to boot games.

THIS IS AFTER PLAYING THROUGH ONCE.

I don't know how I got it to work the first time I just updated everything.... But then I tried a second playthrough and the game locked my laptop and wouldn't shut down. I couldn't end the program or even page out to go back to my desktop nothing... I had to do a manual shut down. But then then when I tried to get back into the game again that screen locked me out of the game despite all drivers and DirectX updated and trying compatibility mode still wouldn't work.

I even tried renaming the install helper so it would ignore it but it didn't work not even with compatibility mode.

At this point it doesn't matter what I try its not working.... I even checked windows Logs to see if I could find a game crash log or app crash log or something but apparently Windows registered nothing happened, maybe cause of the manual shut down I don't know.

I've posted all this to ask if anyone who has had experience with this game or other games with that file if its happened to them and also I would like to ask has anyone had any type of technical problems with any of the other games. I'd like to play part one and two but after this experience with part 3 and what I read of people playing part one experiencing something with the game not registering the display settings I would like to hear from anyone with experience with this series if its playable without constant freezes; lock ups; refusal to boot.

I asked GOG tech support but they sent me back to Microsoft's DirectX Library I already went through and reloaded the DirectX Library June 2010 but only seemed to work once then the game started acting like I didn't even update anything.

I've gone through every game I own that I have on my system none of them have that install helper except ONE game outside of Runaway 3 which is Requiem Avenging Angel and that game runs perfectly fine never had any lock ups or needing permissions from an unknown publisher, I don't understand why Runaway 3 does this.

I would appreciate any helpful advice or solutions that would get this game to boot directly from the icon without needing some coercion to start.

My specs are as follows: Windows 10 Pro i-5 4 core More than enough to run old games.

Then why are you bothering us humans, instead of your new generative AI friend?